Mobile sales to shrink
Market saturation, lack of new tech cited
Thailand’s smartphone market is expected to contract for the first time this year in terms of unit sales because of market saturation and a lack of new technological advances.
The Thailand Mobile Expo is a barometer for the smartphone market, said Opas Cherdpunt, managing director of M Vision and the event’s organiser.
“Smartphone sales during the four-day event are expected to total 1.9 billion baht, equal to last year, which would signify that consumers are delaying purchase of a new device,” he said. “The replacement period has been extended from 12 to 18 months.”
Running until Feb 18, the show, featuring for the first time electric vehicles (EVs) that are connected and controlled via mobile applications, is hosting 40 leading smartphone brands.
But leading Chinese players Oppo and Vivo have opted out of the event this time around.
“No major technological changes are being introduced, so consumers are waiting longer to upgrade their phones,” Mr Opas said. “This year, local smartphones will have dual and quad cameras and face ID, 3D and artificial intelligence to attract users.”
At the show, 10% of the 5,000-squaremetre space has been allocated to electric cars under the concept “Mobile Related Expo”.
This is first EV event in Thailand being attended by leading automotive firms like Tesla, Kia, Silicon Motor, Hyundai and BYD.
“We can use mobile apps to pay for electric charging, both prepaid and postpaid,” Mr Opas said, adding that when an EV needs maintenance, the system will be updated automatically.
In the third quarter, M Vision will organise an EV car exhibition on a larger scale.
Narathip Wirunchatapant, vice-president of marketing at SET-listed Jay Mart, said local smartphone sales will reach 17 million units, shrinking 10%.
The market will still grow by 5% or 100 billion baht in terms of value, because of the higher average selling prices, Mr Narathip said.
The growing markets are for smartphones costing 5,000-10,000 baht, as well as those above 20,000 baht.
The smartphone market is already saturated, Mr Narathip said, adding that Jay Mart needs to find new sources of revenue to maintain sustainable growth.
The company is making more products available via its jaymartstore.com, including smartphones, drones, smart watches and other gadgets.
“Sales through the online platform will be three times larger than last year,” Mr Narathip said.
Arkapong Linpisarn, head of devices at Total Access Communication Plc (DTAC), concurred that the local smartphone market is due to contract, similarly citing the lack of innovations and a high level of market saturation.
Competition among mobile operators will be less in terms of price subsidies, instead putting a focus on value-added services and “lucky” numbers, he said.
The smartphone penetration rate is 70%, so it’s hard to grow by subsidising device prices, Mr Arkapong said.
He said DTAC will stop selling its housebrand smartphone in the second quarter.
“We expect that users this year will consume 7GB of data per month, up from 4GB last year, and thus the price war will shift to data traffic,” Mr Arkapong said.
DTAC aims to increase revenue from postpaid service by 15% and serve 1 million customers, up from 560,000 last year.