Thanks to plunging prices and and a relentless push from regional telecom carriers, IDC reports that smartphone shipments accounted for more than half of Thailand’s mobile phone market for the first time in Q1 of 2014.
This places Thailand as the third country in Southeast Asia after Singapore and Malaysia to ship more smartphones than feature phones.
IDC’s Asia/Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker shows that Thailand mobile phone market began the year with 5.7 million units, which represent a 7% year-on-year decline.
Dragging down the total market was the feature phones market, which faced a 27% YoY decline (on the other hand, the smartphone category showed a healthy growth of 27% YoY).
“These mirroring changes are a reminder of the way affordable smartphones have been successfully replacing feature phones in Thailand. Perhaps the most potent force now is the emergence of smartphones that cost less than [$80], a category which did not exist in Thailand a year ago, but now account for almost 20% of the total smartphone market,” explains Satianporn Suvansupa, Associate Market Analyst for Client Devices Research at IDC Thailand.
