Smartphones’ shipment surge 214pc in Jan-March

KARACHI: Shipments of smartphones in Pakistan massively surged by 214 percent on year-on-year basis during the first three months of this year, mainly due to the deployment of 3G/4G networks in the country, a report revealed.
The report by the International Data Corporation attributed the shifting dynamics of the Pakistan mobile market to the deployment of 3G/4G networks across the country and the subsequent rise in the demand for devices that are compatible with the new infrastructure.
“Pakistan has traditionally been a feature phone market; indeed, just three years ago (2012), 93 percent of all mobile phone shipments in the country were feature phones since there was no network to support smartphones,” it said.
“Even those consumers that did own smartphones had to be content with only using traditional voice and SMS services.”
Last year; however, the market has experienced a drastic shift to the smartphone form factor.
According to IDC's Global Mobile Phone Tracker published in the first quarter of 2015, smartphones now account for around 30 percent of all the devices shipped to Pakistan, up from 25.3 percent in the previous quarter and from 14.7 percent in the corresponding period last year. This shift is set to continue, as IDC expects the proportion of smartphones to overtake feature phones by the end of 2017.
The report said another important factor to consider is that mobile phone penetration currently stands at around 75 percent in Pakistan, meaning there is a sizeable share of the population that has yet to acquire any type of mobile device.
“Uptake among these first-time buyers is sure to spur the smartphone market's development even further,” it said.
“Meanwhile, dual device ownership is expected to rise, with consumers increasingly acquiring a smartphone in addition to their existing feature phones, not only so they can capitalise on the added benefits of the smartphone ownership, but also they can leverage the on-net savings that telcos may provide for both voice and data usages.”
According to the report, QMobile continues to dominate the market with an overall unit share of 58 percent, leading in both the feature phone and smartphone segments. Nokia and Voice are the other key players, with the shares of 17 percent and 5 percent, respectively. The market is also witnessing an influx of new vendors.
IDC expects competition to intensify as other players such as Voice, Samsung, Huawei, and Lenovo make inroads into the market.
“Samsung, for example, initially had a hard time in the Pakistani market, but recent changes to its product mix and target price bands have helped it to finally gain traction in the market, recording a 6 percent share of the smartphone shipments in the first quarter of 2015,” the research and consulting firm said.