IDC: Top 5 smartphone vendors in South East Asia

The latest IDC Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker shows that Samsung holds the top spot in terms of market share and shipment volume in 2017 in the SEA region.

IDC Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker

Ahead of the pack is Samsung with 29.3% 2017 Shipment volumes and 29.1 2017 Market share. OPPO comes in second and this can be attributed to their strong presence in terms of marketing and ad campaigns. Vivo comes in third with 7.2% on both categories giving OPPO a 10% percent lead. Huawei and Apple comes in 4th and 5th respectively.

The top 5 smartphone vendors all saw significant growth from 2016 but the rest of the vendors, out of the top 5, sow a big drop from both categories. Shipment Volumes dropped from 51.6% to 37.1% and Market Shares from 51% to 36.8%.

Several of the local and smaller players were losing competitively as the top brands continued to strengthen their grasp of the market with a barrage of low-end sub USD 100 - USD 200 phones and mid-range sub USD 201 - USD 400 phones.

There are some highlights still even if there was an overall decline. The mid-range smartphone market showed a growth of 53% YoY in shipments which was due to the top 5 players' midrange lineups. These lineups include Samsung's J-series, OPPO and Vivo's F5 and V7 series, Huawei's Nova series and Apple was still represented by their older models namely the iPhone 5, iPhone SE and iPhone 6.

4G smartphones also gained popularity leading to a 44% YoY growth. 4G smartphones and connectivity has finally became an industry standard in the region which called for smartphone brands adapting to it. However, 4G feature phones are still facing low demands.

Phablets which are smartphones that 5.5-inch to 7-inch grew 71% YoY in terms of shipments as well. This shows that people now clamor for bigger and better displays. The less than 5.5-inch market, however, still holds majority of the market share. The growth in phablet's popularity can be attributed to media consumption habits and the bezel craze of 2017.