Southeast Asia consumers bought 41.5 million smartphones, spending US$10.8 billion in the first three quarters of this year, according to GfK Asia.
Indonesia led the way with sale of 14.8 million smartphones worth more than USS3.33 billion. Thailand and Malaysia were next with 7.2 million and 6.4 million units sold respectively. However, in terms of smartphone sales revenue, the ranking of these two countries are switched with Malaysia garnering US$2.25 billion while Thailand raked in US$1.96 billion in January to September.
“The increasing affordability of smartphones, particularly in the developing markets is helping many consumers in these countries make the switch from their basic feature phones to own their very first smartphone,” said Gerard Tan, Account Director for Digital Technology of GfK Asia. “It is worth highlighting the significant milestone of September being the month whereby sales penetration reached the halfway mark; where one in every two mobile handsets purchased in the region is now a smartphone.”
India’s smartphone market grew an astounding 229 percent year-on-year in Q3. According to IDC’s APEJ Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped a total of 12.8 million smartphones in Q3 compared to 3.8 million units in the same period of 2012. Q3 also saw an increase of 28 percent over Q2.
The uptake of 4G-LTE is expected to grow to pass one billion by 2017, according to a new study by GSMA Intelligence. This translates to one in eight of the more than eight billion total mobile connections forecast by that point, up from 176 million LTE connections at the end of 2013. And around half of these are expected to be in Asia.
ZTE has announced a strategic commitment to provide enhanced converged operations capabilities as a member of the Next Generation Mobile Network (NGMN). ZTE is collaborating with both its customers as well as NGMN, an alliance led by 22 of the largest international mobile network operators, via its Next Generation Converged Operations Requirements (NGCOR) project in order to meet and exceed current industry needs.
In four years’ time, your smartphone may be smarter than you. It will be able to predict your next move, next purchase or interpret actions based on what it knows, according to Gartner. This insight will be performed based on an individual’s data gathered using cognizant computing — the next step in personal cloud computing.
Customer experience management (CEM) has emerged as the top driver of telco IT investments in 2014, according to Ovum’s ICT Enterprise Insights. Telco IT spend is expected to reach US$60.7b by 2017, with investments geared towards telecoms infrastructure (cloud platforms, server virtualisation and BSS/OSS systems to support LTE implementations) and online channels to support customers’ increasingly digital lifestyles.
The numbers are clear. Big is getting more popular. Large screen smart phones (five-inch and above) accounted for 22 percent of the quarter billion smartphones shipped in Q3. This is the highest number ever and translates to a staggering 56 million units.
The HTC One has gotten a bigger brother — the 5.9-inch HTC One max. Just like the recently launched Apple iPhone 5S, the new smartphone has a fingerprint scan feature. Located on the back of the device, the fingerprint scanner allows users to lock or unlock the screen and quickly launch up to three favourite applications by assigning an individual finger to each.
3D printing, personal cloud, the Internet of Everything — these buzzwords today are expected to be among the top 10 strategic technology trends next year, according to Gartner.
After the first Samsung Galaxy Note 3 reached the hands of eager fans, one glaringky unwanted feature was spotted — the smartphone has region locked its SIM card.
Blackberry has agreed to be sold to Fairfax Financial Holdings for US$4.7 billion.
To most people around the world, Coolpad, Lenovo and Xiaomi don’t quite ring a bell when it comes to smartphones. But, in China, these three Chinese smartphone OEMs outsold Apple in Q2, according to ABI Research.
One billion smartphones are expected to be shipped this year, helping the global mobile phone market to rebound from just 1.2 percent growth in 2012 to 7.3, percent in 2013, according to IDC
Android’s smartphone mobile app revenues are projected to reach almost US$6.8 billion by the end of 2013, nearly doubling its revenues from the previous year, according to ABI Research.
Samsung and Apple grew smartphone shipment by 55 percent and 20 percent respectively to maintain first and second place in Q2, according to Canalys.
In an effort to make an impact in the smartphone market, Nokia seems to be banging the camera feature. Boasting a second generation 41 megapixel sensor, the new Nokia Lumia 1020 reinvents zoom, delivering more details than the eye can see so people can take photos first and frame later.
Yet another iteration of the Samsung Galaxy S4 will be making its debut in Singapore on Saturday. The 
GSMA has launched GSMA Intelligence, a powerful new data and analysis resource for the mobile industry. The online portal provides a comprehensive set of data points, covering every mobile operator in every country worldwide, alongside market insights produced by a team of experienced industry analysts and experts.
Entelechy Asia 