Key Southeast Asian Markets see Growth in Smartphone Sales

Asian guy on phoneSmartphone ownership in Southeast Asia continues to skyrocket, with 120m units sold across seven key markets in the last 12 months, an increase of 44 per cent year-on-year in volume, and 24 per cent in value.

Looking at Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia, there has been huge growth, with $16.4bn (£10.1bn) in sales in the last year.

Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand were the most active markets, with increases in sales volume of 70, 56 and 44 per cent respectively. These three countries also saw the largest increases in sales dollars against the previous years, with Vietnam growing by 52 per cent, Indonesia by 32 per cent, and Thailand by 31 per cent.

“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,” said Gerard Tan, account director for digital world at GfK Asia, who provided the figures.

“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,” said Tan. “These budget smartphone models have gone down particularly well in the developing markets.”

Indonesia is the only market where local brands have continued to grow in popularity, with Chinese brands becoming prevalent in Malaysia, Vietnam and other markets. More than 345 Chinese branded smartphones now exist across the region, with the average Chinese phone costing 58 per cent less than an internationally branded smartphone.