Canalys’ latest market report on the Southeast Asian smartphone market shows a healthy 12% growth year-on-year in the first quarter of this year. Analysts say it’s the first sign of recovery after a rather difficult 2023. Smartphone manufacturers shipped 23.5 million units, but they are still below pre-2023 levels.
One of the main driving forces of the Q1 success is Ramdan in some markets like Indonesia and Malaysia, while other companies like Transsion benefited from markets like Philippines and Indonesia where the sub-$100 segments saw a revival.
In any case, Samsung is still in the lead with 19% market share, despite its shipment volume tanking 20% year-on-year. That’s to be expected, however, as the Korean tech giant is slowly shifting its strategy into focusing more on the mid-range and high-end segments. It believes the trend is for consumers to seek out high-end smartphones in the near future.
Transsion, with its sub-brands Infinix, Tecno and iTel, secures a comfortable second spot wit 18% market share and recording an impressive 197% year-on-year growth. It outpaces companies like Oppo and Xiaomi even. The latter saw a substantial 52% increase in sales during this quarter, while Oppo slipped 12% year-on-year.
Analysts are optimistic of the future and predict about 4% total market growth in 2024, but future uncertainties surrounding fluctuating currencies, component cost and other volatile factors may stunt the market’s growth. That’s why vendors with an efficient supply chain and healthy inventory will benefit from these conditions.
