Smartphone sales in Southeast Asia where six of the seven markets are developing markets continue to increase month aftermath and posted 43 percent growth in the first quarter of 2014 compared to the same period last war.
Research firm GfK said in a new report, the sales generated nearly USD4.2 billion in revenues for the handset manufacturers, which represents a 25 percent increase from a year ago.
“Demand for mobile handsets is stabilizing as indicated by the slight two percent growth in volume sales, but we continue to see consistent deepening of smartphone penetration in this region,” said Gerard Tan, Account Director for Digital World at GfK Asia. “More than half the market today is contributed by smartphones and the trend will be sustained as the switchover in emerging markets takes precedence.”
The top three growth markets for smartphones according to sales volume in Q1 were Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, which reported 68, 59 and 45 percent increase sales, respectively. Indonesia is also the largest market with consumers buying over 7.3 million smartphones or two-fifths of the region’s smartphones sales for the quarter.
“The intensified penetration in Thailand and Vietnam was likely driven by the 3G launch last year, which served as a catalyst tipping consumers in these two countries towards the smartphone segment,” said Tan. “At the same time, a mix of Chinese and local brands have penetrated into the smartphone market of emerging countries with very attractively priced models to appeal to the low-end segment, managing to convert those consumers who cannot afford the premium phones.”
GfK noted that smartphones priced lower than USD100 turned in the strongest growth to become the largest contributing segment in dollar terms, accounting for over 30 percent in the first quarter. Meanwhile, phablets, or large smartphones with screen size measuring over 5.6 inch have become increasingly sought after. Over 1.1 million units worth a total of USD567 million have been sold, with Malaysia and Indonesia being the biggest markets for this sector.