The Philippines smartphone market jumped 20 percent in Q1, according to IDC. With a projected annual growth of 25 percent this year, this makes the country the fastest growing smartphone market in Southeast Asia (SEA).
“While many of the more mature smartphone markets of the world already displayed signs of saturation, the Philippines smartphone market continues to enjoy robust growth owing to a relatively low smartphone penetration rate (30 percent in 2015), active local brand presence, and healthy consumer spending,” said Jerome Dominguez, Market Analyst for Mobile Devices of IDC Philippines.
Local vendors continue to dominate the Philippines smartphone market as they flood it with the most affordable smartphone options.




China Telecom Sichuan has launched the first commercial 4K ultra-HD iTV network service in China. It has teamed up with Huawei to release a 4K ultra-HD intelligent smart set top box, making China Telecom Sichuan the first telecommunications company in China to use 4K STBs for carrying video services.
Rising demand for broadband will spur economies in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC).
g quarter for smartphones as global shipment broke the 300 million unit barrier for the first time. This represented year-on-year growth of 23 percent, according to Canalys.
Huawei has launched IP Video Solution 2.0, which integrates diverse features and a new user experience to improve video business platform facilitation from Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) to Video Everywhere.
Even as mobile broadband modems and hotspot router shipments fell 21 percent year-on-year to nearly 73 million units, Huawei continued to lead the market with nearly 61 percent share. Together with fellow China company ZTE, the pair shipped more than 85 percent of all mobile broadband modems, according to ABI Research.
Samsung Electronics is the world’s top semiconductor buyer, and together with second placed Apple, increased their combined semiconductor demand by 17 percent in 2013, according to Gartner.
Telecom New Zealand has launched a new 4G LTE network that can provide speeds of up to 150 Mb/s to mobile subscribers in parts of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.




ZTE has overtaken Alcatel-Lucent to slot just behind leader Huawei in the global optical networking (ON) market. This is the first time that Chinese vendors are holding the top two ranks in ON, according to Ovum.
Samsung led the smartphone market as smartphones outshipped feature phones for the first time in Q1. According to IDC (see table below), Samsung not only maintained its pole position but widened its market share lead over Apple in the smartphone market.