Canalys: The Philippines Is the 2nd Largest Smartphone Market in SEA in January! Low-End Competition Intensified.

The Galaxy S23 Series is just too overpowered in the market. Have you noticed that Apple is nowhere to be seen in any of these reports?

Canalys has published its official smartphone market report for Southeast Asia. In the report, Indonesia remains the top market last January followed by the Philippines and Thailand, accounting for 2.7 million, 1.5 million, and 1.3 million shipments respectively.

The firm also reports that the market responds well to low-end smartphones with good price-to-spec ratios which has also been the focus of many contemporary brands like Xiaomi, realme, and Transsion (Infinix, Itel, and Tecno). However, despite this, Samsung became the top vendor in the region, surpassing Transsion, with their successful launch of the Galaxy S24 series.

Transsion, in second place, continues to release phones that are worth one’s investments through outstanding designs, high-performance chipsets, and rich sound and viewing experiences. Keeping up with this tradition, last November, Tecno released an ultrabudget phone called the Tecno Spark Go 2024, also known as the Tecno Pop 8 in some countries. Its main highlight is the stereo speakers with DTS sound enhancement. We’ve got the review unit and very soon, we’ll be happy to share our findings.

Transsion, while second in Southeast Asia, remained the top contender in the Philippines. This is due to the brand constantly releasing low-end devices which amplified the competition between brands such as Xiaomi and realme. In response, realme responded by releasing the note 50, a phone with surprisingly great specs at a great price. It is essentially a lower-end version of the realme c51, retaining its good features such as a premium design, great camera software, and decent performance at a lower price point, with some small catches such as a weaker 13MP camera and a low-powered chipset. The brand launched the phone quite aggressively to the point of almost giving away the device for free. Just recently, a 128GB version of the realme note50 was launched due to high demand. The base variant of the phone costs PHP 3,599 (4/64) and the 4/128 version costs PHP 4,599.

RELATED: NOTEworthy Alternative: realme Note 50 Review!

Meanwhile, its main competitor, the Tecno Spark Go 2024, costs PHP 4,999 (4/128) but has since decreased in price.

Source: Canalys