Smartphones to contribute over 35% to the total sales in MEA

Dubai:

In the past two years, there has been a rapid rise in the sale of smartphones throughout the world. The Middle East and Africa (MEA) too is likely to keep pace with the trend and in the next two years, if the numbers are any indication, there could well be an incremental sale of smartphones in the region, industry experts say.

Although smartphones accounted for a mere 20.54 per cent of the total sales of 193.24 million in 2012 in the MEA, fewer than 40 million units, they are seen setting a scorching pace.

Smartphones have overtaken feature phones in some parts of the world, but it will take at least two to three years in this region, an industry expert said in an exclusive interview to Gulf News.

“Feature phones still reign as the more prevalent mobile phone type used by consumers in the region, especially in Africa region,” said Annette Zimmermann, Principal Analyst at Gartner Deutschland GmbH.

By the end of this year, smartphone sales are set to overtake feature phone sales globally. Out of the total shipments of 1.9 billion units, smartphones are going to contribute 52.63 per cent to the growth by sales of around one billion.

“We will definitely witness increased convergence and integration and a more immersing smartphone experience and interaction in 2013. Consumption of data will continue to rise, with increased consumption of TV and video content on mobile devices. Cloud will continue to act as a primary driver — offering better integration and compatibility across platforms and Digital Smart Devices.,” Jon French, vice-president at HTC Middle East and Africa, told Gulf News.

In this region, Zimmermann said that smartphones are expected to contribute more than 35 per cent to the total sales of 215 million units. Smartphone sales are expected to be around 77 million.

“The main reason for the spurt in smartphone sales is the falling prices and a wider variety of models have become available, spurring sales of both low-end smartphones,” she said.

“Feature phones will come under pressure, not only in this region but also in emerging markets, due to the falling average selling price of smartphones. We expect low-cost Android devices ($50-$80) will fuel further growth. The quality of phones produced by Chinese vendors has improved and people will prefer them,” Zimmermann said.

“Small vendors like TCL, Alcatel and Huawei are getting very strong and are selling Android devices at lower price points,” Zimmermann said.

In the operating system space, the battle between BlackBerry and Microsoft will intensify this year for the third operating system ranking globally. Android is still the number one operating system followed by Apple’s iOS.

“Samsung was the biggest contributor to Android’s success while addition of Nokia’s strong commitment behind the Windows platform was the key driver in Microsoft’s success,” Zimmermann said.

Microsoft cannot be left out, she said and added that Microsoft has lot of power and marketing budget to pump into compared to Blackberry. Microsoft has another advantage compared to BlackBerry that is Windows 8 runs on many devices.

“More vendors will launch Windows 8 devices this year. Interest is growing in the software,” she said.