Homegrown smartphone brand beats Samsung in the Philippines

Philippine budget phone maker Cherry Mobile beat South Korean giant Samsung as the leading smartphone brand in the Philippines in 2014, IDC said today. It was the second straight year that Cherry has whipped Samsung in the nation.

According to the research firm, Cherry cornered 21.9 percent of the Philippine market in terms of volume of smartphones shipped in 2014, overtaking Samsung, whose share declined further to 13.3 percent.

Cherry has held the spot as the number one smartphone vendor in the Philippines since 2013. That year, it captured 24.3 percent of the market, and Samsung held 19.9 percent, based on data provided by IDC to Tech in Asia.

“The success of local smartphone players is an offshoot of heavy marketing, celebrity endorsements, and price-competitive offerings,” says Daniel Pang, senior research manager of the Client Devices Group at IDC Asia-Pacific. “Branding is critical in the Philippines. The thriving local vendors are those that not only offer budget-friendly smartphones, but also produce strong ATL (above-the-line or traditional media) campaigns and are endorsed by popular celebrities.”

In terms of value of smartphone shipments, however, Samsung was still unbeatable in the Philippines, with a share of 21.7 percent in 2014. Yet this was also a decline from the previous year’s 28 percent. Cherry, on the other hand, had a flat year-on-year performance in value, with an 11.2 percent share in 2014, versus 11.3 percent in 2013. This shows that mid- to high-end models continued to account for a big portion of Samsung’s shipments, while Cherry’s shipments were dominated by budget or cheap models.

Samsung’s woes seem to be piling up as it finds itself being outflanked by domestic brands in smartphone markets across the world. Last year, Xiaomi became the largest smartphone vendor in China, while Micromax topped Indian shipments, dumping Samsung to number two.

BlackBerry down; Xiaomi still tiny

Local phone makers gained the largest market share in 2014, with 57 percent, versus 49 percent in 2013. This was followed by global brands, whose collective share dropped to 28 percent from 35 percent. Chinese vendors, meanwhile, had a 15 percent share, a slight decline from 16 percent in 2013.

Aside from Cherry, two other homegrown Philippine smartphone makers were among the top five vendors in 2014: MyPhone (third) and Torque (fifth).

Among the Chinese brands, Lenovo had the biggest share, snagging the fourth spot. Although gaining traction in other regions, Chinese firms that just recently branched out of China, such as Oppo and Xiaomi, have yet to gain ground in the Philippines given limited brand awareness, notes IDC. The research firm expects this to change this year with the new entrants ramping up their marketing efforts.

Samsung leads the pack of global vendors, followed by LG. As a newcomer to the smartphone market, Asus also gained considerable share last year. “The decline of Sony and Blackberry contributed to the drop in the overall share of global vendors in the Philippine smartphone market,” IDC says in its report.