Smartphone producers add high-end bracket
Samsung joins Apple in creating luxury price points
The local smartphone market is creating a new high price point for the “ultimate premium segment”, where prices are above 30,000 baht.
After not introducing a product for two years, Samsung’s has scheduled the Galaxy Note 8 ‘s launch on Sept 22 priced at 33,000 baht, 10% higher than the Note 7.
Samsung smartphones in Thailand remain popular, said Wichai Pornpratang, vice-president for IT and mobile communications at Thai Samsung Electronics Co.
Samsung’s smartphone business is performing better this year than last year due to availability of full product ranges.
Locally, Samsung has millions of Galaxy Note users and the pre-order volume of Note 8 is the highest of all Galaxy series — 1.5 times higher than Note 7.
The price increase is because of the rising cost of smartphone components, said Mr Pornchai.
According to Nielsen Thailand, Thais spent four hours per day on smartphones, of which 58 minutes is spent watching rerun videos and 41 minutes watching live streams per day. In term of usage, Thais spent 75 minutes for communicating, 67 minutes on applications, 45 minutes for entertainment, 24 minutes for browsing, and 18 minutes for device management.
Vongsakorn Sorpitiporn, senior marketing manager for Mobile Channel Department of Sony Thai, said the higher price of smartphones comes from the increased price of materials and phone memory.
However, Sony still positions itself in the mediumto-premium market. Sony recently introduced Xperia XZ1, the world’s first smartphone featuring real-time 3D image creation, which will be available Sept 28.
“In the future, Sony smartphones will support holographic capability and users will be able to converse with ‘real people’ through their phones,” said Mr Vongsakorn.
IDC Thailand head of operations Jarit Sidhu said the fourth quarter is high season for smartphones, where flagship and high-end phones are paraded in the market.
Dubbed ultra premium, Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and Apple iPhone X start at 33,000 baht and 40,000 baht, respectively.
Both Samsung and Apple try to differentiate their flagship smartphones from commodity Chinese brands such as Vivo and Oppo whose flagship models are priced 12,000 to 15,000 baht.
Mr Jarit said smartphones in the future will come with unique capabilities such as biometrics, artificial intelligence and digital assistants to users.
Smartphones priced above US$700 (23,148 baht) in Thailand accounted for 24% of total sales value in the first half of 2017, the same as in 2016. In units, they accounted for 6.3% in the first half of 2017, compared with 5.2% in 2016.