China, India, Indonesia will continue driving smartphone demand

Smartphone shipments will hit 1.7 billion in 2017, with most going to these three.

In a new report, independent telecoms analyst firm Ovum finds that 450 million smartphones were sold in 2011, of which around 160 million were sold in emerging markets.

China alone accounted for around 66% of smartphones sold in emerging markets, and Ovum estimates that smartphone shipments could reach nearly 57% of total devices sold in emerging markets by 2017.

Shiv Putcha, Ovum Principal Analyst, Telecoms Emerging Markets comments: “China is at the center of smartphone development and adoption in emerging markets, with the whole ecosystem increasingly geared toward the production of ever-more feature-rich affordable devices. This new wave of affordable smartphones will have a major impact on consumer choice in emerging markets.”

Putcha notes: “While much of this development is occurring in China, local brands from other emerging markets are also adopting this model. Other emerging markets that will show strong growth include India and Indonesia, with Brazil and Russia following.”

Smartphones have become cheaper, and a nascent entry-level segment is taking shape in the sub-$100 price band. However, affordability remains a big issue in most emerging markets.

Operator subsidies for smartphones are uncommon in emerging markets and this has hampered smartphone adoption. Major chipset and platform vendors such as Mediatek and Qualcomm are having a significant impact on both smartphone availability and affordability by offering reference designs to their device OEM partners and reducing barriers to entry.

However, as China is driving smartphone adoption and development among emerging markets, many Chinese adjacent players, including Baidu and Alibaba, are aiming to leverage the opportunity that smartphones offer in terms of extending their online mobile services.

Virtually all of these players are using Android, but some of them are going a step further and customizing Android to offer their own user interfaces, icons, and services, essentially replacing Google in the process.

Beyond simply launching new phones, these vendors are innovating on the distribution side, with companies such as Xiaomi successfully focusing on online sales and services.

“The growth of smartphones in emerging markets will see a corresponding growth in online services such as cloud, storage, and purchasing based on mobile money transactions. OEMs and equipment vendors will also increase their presence in online services.”

“However, mobile operators seeking to gain a slice of the growth in low-cost smartphones in emerging markets through white-labeled devices will struggle to gain traction in the market and achieve the same success as the more established brands,” concludes Putcha.