Chinese brands power Southeast Asia smartphone as sales top $16.4bn
Smartphone uptake in Southeast Asia has powered ahead over the past year to top $16.4bn for the first time, driven by a 6 per cent increase in market share for Chinese brands.
Seven markets from Singapore to Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia were surveyed by GfK tracking close to 120m individual devices, a 44 per cent hike in volume and 24 per cent increase in value year on year.
Of these areas Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand were the fastest growing with growth in demand of 70, 56 and 44 per cent and an increase in sales dollars of 32, 52 and 31 per cent respectively.
Gerard Tan, account director for Digital World at GfK Asia said: “The big developing countries are the ones fuelling the strong surge in adoption as many outside the big cities are probably just making the switch from their basic feature phone and acquiring their first smartphone.
“A key driver fuelling the strong market performance especially in the developing countries is the introduction of more low-end models by new Chinese manufacturers, making smartphones more affordable and taking competition in the marketplace to an even more intense level.”
Interestingly Indonesia was the only major market where homegrown brands have continued to prosper, gaining a 16 per cent share in volume and 7 per cent share in value of their market, with the big Chinese brands more successful in Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.