China has emerged tops with five out of 19 winners in the 2018 IDC Smart City Asia Pacific Awards (SCAPA). Taiwan and Singapore were next with four and three awards respectively across 12 functional categories.
Continue reading “China tops IDC’s smart cities awards”
Myanmar startup Goama has launched its “Netflix of Games” mobile gaming subscription app in India. Called Go|Games, the Android app has more than 700,000 subscribers in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Myanmar.
Continue reading “Myanmar startup Goama launches mobile gaming app in India”
Go-Jek will be heading to the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam in the next few months.
Razer has teamed up with Lazada to put its newly-launched Razer Game Store on the e-commerce platform for Southeast Asia.
Continue reading “Razer Game Store on Lazada for Southeast Asia”
As if we don’t already have enough of ads. Facebook has announced that it will start rolling out ads to Messenger. With 1.2 billion users, the social media giant does have immense appeal for advertisers.
It seems that Facebook has completed test runs in Australia and Thailand and are ready to unleash ads on the rest of the world in the coming weeks.
The thing is that Messenger was literally forced onto mobile users when Facebook unbundled it from its mobile app. Users did not have a choice. Of course, there’s always browser access — it’s a little cumbersome but still an option for those resisting the move.
Gamers in northern Thailand, specifically Chiangmai, will get to enjoy premium gaming experience with the opening of Xenith iCafe in the city.
All its 100 PCs are equipped with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 GPUs, which deliver advanced performance, power efficiency, and realistic gameplay based on the latest NVIDIA Maxwell technology. They also come with high quality Razer gaming gear – mouse, keyboard and headset – all tailored to give gamers the best experience.
Situated near Chiangmai University , the modern and trendy Xenith iCafe features two gaming zones – a comfort zone and a VIP zone to cater to gamers’ needs as well as to host gaming events. This is a new trend in the iCafe market where owners can better balance cost, performance and functionality while delivering the gaming experience that their customers demand.
Continue reading “Xenith iCafe opens with 100 NVIDIA GeForce GPU-Powered PCs”
Looks like ZTE believes that Thais love to take selfies. The newly-launched ZTE Blade S7, which is designed for selfie lovers, will first be made available in Thailand before hitting the rest of the region.
The smartphone features a five-inch full HD LTPS screen with a 445 PPI Super Retina display for 178-degree full viewing angles. Housed in an aluminum alloy frame with thin bezels, Blade S7 offers a 72.1 percent screen-to-body ratio and is protected with 2.5D curved Gorilla Glass 3 on both the front and back.
Just 7.2mm thick and 67mm wide, it comes with a powerful 13-megapixel front-facing camera with a front flash and phase detection autofocus, as well as functions for panorama shots and 14 different beautification options. At the back is another 13-megapixel rear camera that supports professional and auto shooting modes, selective focus, and laser auto focus for fast and accurate shooting in low-light conditions.
The smartphone market continued to grow in Asia-Pacific excluding Japan in Q3, albeit at a modest six percent quarter on quarter, according to IDC.
During this period, India led with 23 million units shipped, and added around five million units to the market over Q2.
Emerging markets in the region also surged ahead with 23 million units shipped, accounting for 22 percent growth as tier-1 Chinese vendors extended their reach outside China.
Continue reading “India leads growth in Asian smartphone market in Q3”
Thailand mobile operator AIS has deployed Huawei innovative Active Antenna Unit (AAU)-based Easy MacroTM solution across its network.
Over the last few years, mobile broadband has developed rapidly in Thailand, predominantly driven by the high penetration of smartphones and tablets. The new solution enables AIS to improve network capacity and provide better user experience to subscribers.
“Deploying Huawei Easy MacroTM solution across our network in the major cities will support our capacity needs as we bring mobile broadband to the people of Thailand,” said an AIS executive.
The Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) PC market grew two percent from last quarter and declined 10 percent year-on-year in Q2 to reach 24.3 million units, coming in marginally higher than IDC’s initial forecasts, according to the research firm’s preliminary results.The Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) PC market declined eight percent sequentially and 11 percent year-on-year in 2014 Q1 to reach 23.8 million units, according to preliminary results from IDC.
Elections in some of the bigger markets contributed to the region’s overall decline. In India, an ongoing large education project was postponed due to the upcoming elections, shaving off about half a million units from the commercial PC segment. In Thailand, political unrest continued to have an adverse impact on the economy, while in Indonesia, government funds were diverted in the run-up to the elections, resulting in lower commercial spending in PCs there this quarter.
“However, as these markets stabilise after the elections, IDC expects commercial activity to resume in the second half as a result of pent-up demand,” said Handoko Andi, Research Manager for Client Devices of IDC Asia/Pacific. “On the consumer side, ongoing distractions from smartphones and tablets as well as cautious channel intake impacted most markets in the region, especially in Southeast Asia.”
Continue reading “APAC PC market dips for 8th consecutive quarter”
The Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) PC market declined 10 percent in 2013 to reach 108 million units, according to preliminary results from IDC.
The economic sluggishness in big emerging markets in the region adversely affected buying sentiments, with education sector projects being a lone bright spot in the commercial space, without which the region could have dropped even further. On the consumer side, smartphone and tablet distractions spread throughout the region this year, further contributing to the sharp decline in the PC market.
In Q4, the market came in two percent below IDC’s initial forecasts with a nine percent year-on-year decline. While most of the region was generally in line with forecasts, Thailand stood out as an exception, as the market there was plagued by the ongoing political turmoil. Shipment volumes this quarter will likely be the lowest in Thailand in the last four years.
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.”
Continue reading “SEA smartphone sales up 61% in first three quarters”
Sluggish demand in Thailand’s consumer market helped drive PC shipment down 20 percent in Q1, compared to the same period last year.
According to IDC’s Asia/Pacific Quarterly PC Tracker, PC shipment reached only 800,000 units in Q1.
The launch of new 3G data plans by all three Thai mobile operators will introduce broad changes to the competitive dynamics among mobile operators, particularly in how they deal with the mass market segment.
IDC issued this warning after a review of the price plans and potential market share of the three mobile operators after the release of their 3G service plans.
IDC believes the industry is set for a slew of promotional and pricing competitive pressures in the next six months, possibly resulting in significant churn among the customer base if one of the telco operators does not keep its defenses up.
Continue reading “IDC: Fiercer competition after 3G rollout in Thailand”
