DELHI: Recent briefing by market research and analyst firm International Data Corporation on the Malaysian Smartphone market is that Malaysians have changed their preference for what form factor they prefer.
The desires for Samsung smart phones have dropped significantly and miss the collapse of what used to be the mid-tier market in Malaysia.
The fingerprint of Chinese phone vendors can be seen on all three trends.
The increasing reliance of Malaysians on their smart phones for web browsing, messaging, games, and video has resulted in them gravitating towards phones that provide them a certain level of viewing and holding comfort, according to Jensen Ooi, market analyst for client devices at IDC Asia/Pacific.
As a result, IDC reveals that while the demand for smart phones grew 40% in 2014, models with screen sizes between 4in and 5.5in doubled, while phablets (5.6in and 6.9in) enjoyed even stronger growth of 68% year on year (YoY). IDC classifies phablets under the Smartphone category.
In the absence of government subsidies, the increasing availability of feature rich, performance-driven Chinese smart phones such as Oppo and Meizu at competitive price points has been a big driver for budget-conscious Malaysians to move to larger sizes.
Interestingly, in a market dominated by prepaid users, operator packages have had minimal influence on this shift to larger phones and phablets, IDC notes.
“There was no need for such users to anchor themselves to subscriber plans and lose the liberty to switch devices when needed,” says Ooi.
However, it is a different case for flagship phablets such as the iPhone 6 Plus or Samsung Galaxy Notes, where because of their high prices, users see more value by signing up with mobile operators.
Looking at the Singapore market on the other hand, Ooi notes that it is more inclined towards mobile operators as there is considerable demand for phablets. For instance, the 5.5in category in 2014 was dominated by Samsung’s Galaxy Notes, Xiaomi’s Redmi Note, and towards the end of the year, by Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus.
IDC’s data shows that in Malaysia, the share of phablets within smart phones was only 2% in 2012 but increased strongly to 14% in 2013 and to 17% in 2014.
Ooi says that despite the seemingly humble share of 14% in 2013, unit shipments of phablets actually grew by nearly 13 times compared with 2012.
In Singapore, the share of phablets within smart phones was 3% in 2012, increasing to 19% in 2013 and 31% in 2014.
