5G deployment in developing Southeast Asian markets has been abysmal, ensuring the hype for 5G has dwindled, and demand has shifted to more practical aspects of smartphones such as battery life, storage, processor speed and camera quality, reports Canalys.
“The demand for 5G devices has come to a standstill. 5G devices experienced their first sequential decline to 18% of overall smartphone shipments in Q2,” said research analyst Chiew Le Xuan.
Growing inflation has resulted in consumers looking for longer-lasting devices over less practical qualities such as 5G.
Practical uses of 5G have yet to be seen, and is especially unnecessary for low-mid devices when 4G speeds are sufficient in day-to-day usage.
“Maintaining device affordability while boosting profitability is the greatest challenge fora-vendors,” Xuan added.
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In the second quarter (Q2), Southeast Asian smartphone shipments reached 24.5 million units, a 7% drop from the previous quarter.
Samsung retained its leading position, despite a 19% fall from Q1, owing to lower than anticipated demand for its mid-to-high-end A series.
Indonesia remained the largest market, with 37% share and 9.1 million shipments, followed by Philippines with 4.4 million shipments.
Thailand’s smartphone market declined 14% sequentially to 4 million units, and Vietnam smartphone market declined 32% quarter-on-quarter to 3.1 million shipments, as a result of weakened consumer demand stemming from global uncertainties and rising commodity prices.
Malaysia’s smartphone market grew 6% to 2.4 million shipments.
