GfK: Smartphones dented by pandemic

‘‘ We also expect some models of smartphones to have shortages because of supply chain disruptions. WANNAPONG TAWARA Director, GfK Thailand

The coronavirus outbreak will dent the local smartphone market this year, while the IT market should be cushioned by the rising trends of working from home and online shopping, says GfK Thailand, the local unit of the German tech research firm.

Wannapong Tawara, director of GfK Thailand, said from March to May, the local smartphone and IT market is expected to dip because of the outbreak.

Overall IT retail is expected to fall by 1-2% in 2020, while smartphones are likely to contract 5-7%.

The adoption of working from home should drive up demand for computer devices and tablets, both purchases and rentals, said Mr Wannapong.

Even as 5G-enabled smartphones are introduced, people are uncertain about the economy, which hampers demand for new devices, he said.

Local smartphone sales typically register 14-15 million units per year, while notebooks post 700,000-800,000 units a year.

In the first two months of this year, sales of IT products at retail shops dropped 1% while online sales jumped 70% year-on year.

During the same period, local smartphone sales contracted 4-5%.

Offline sales dropped by 12% while online sales grew 100%.

“Despite online sale growth, the value of transactions still cannot offset falling offline sales with a lot of shops,” said Mr Wannapong.

“We also expect some models of smartphones to have shortages because of supply chain disruptions.”

According to GfK, the online sales of consumer technology products contributed to 11% of the total market in 2019, up from 7% in 2018 and 5% in 2017.

“The online sales of IT and smartphones as well as printers was better than consumer electric appliances that may be difficult to order online, such as air conditioners, which require installations,” he said.

In 2019, offline sales in the telecom market (feature phones, smartphones and wearable devices) reached 107 billion baht, up 1.1% from a year earlier.

Smartphones were a major contributor to the local telecom market, particularly mid- and high-range handsets priced 8,000-20,000 baht.

As for IT products, which include desktops, notebooks, tablets, printers and monitors, sales dropped 5.5% to 26.6 billion baht.

The telecom market accounted for 44% and IT accounted for 11% of the total technical consumer goods (TCG) GfK collected data on for 39 products in the offline market.

In 2019, TCG grew 0.7% to 243 billion baht in terms of value and climbed 4.6% to 50.4 million in terms of units.

Research firm aCommerce, which uses BrandIQ as a tool to measure the e-commerce market, indicated Asean consumers would tighten their spending in March.

The only products that will see growth are necessities to prepare for the outbreak and protective items against the pandemic, it said.