While the decline in sales in China was magnified by unusually high sales at the start of 2023, other factors have kept the market down, senior analyst Ivan Lam said in the report.
“Consumer confidence will need to rise to stabilize the market, but it is a tough call right now with everything that is happening, especially in the real estate sector,” he said.
One casualty has been Apple, whose smartphone shipments in China declined 24% in the first six weeks of the year, according to the research. This decline resulted, in part, from the revival of local competitor Huawei, but also abnormally high shipments by Apple at the start of 2023 that resulted from earlier production delays.
However, as growth in smartphone markets like China and the U.S. slow, brands that sell premium phones like Apple and Huawei are increasingly looking to emerging markets like Southeast Asia, which are poised for growth.
According to data from Canalys, Southeast Asia’s phone market is forecasted to grow 7% year-over-year in 2024, a much faster rate than that of the rest of the world, which is at 3%. Meanwhile, China is predicted to grow by 1%, and North America’s market is predicted to stay flat.
According to reporting from Bloomberg, Apple’s first retail location in Malaysia is already in the works. Meanwhile, Huawei has been strengthening ties with Southeast Asian partners such as the Indonesian telecommunications company Telkomsel.
In the Canalys report, Indonesia remained the largest Southeast Asian smartphone market, making up 38% of shipments in January. The second largest market, the Philippines, showed the most robust growth with shipments up 77% in January compared to last year.
The next largest markets were Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia, in that order. Vietnam was the only country to experience a year-on-year shipment
decline, dropping 2%.
decline, dropping 2%.
Source : CNBC
March 24, 2024
