According to research firm IDC, the Philippines smartphone market grew annually by 26.8%, bringing in 4.2-million unit shipments in the first quarter of 2021.
Transsion, with its three brands: Itel, Infinix, and the recently launched Tecno, upped its game in 2020 and landed at the fourth position in Q4 of 2020.
Much of the growth continues to be driven by mature markets in which trade-in emulates a form of subsidy to push consumers to upgrade, according to research firm IDC.
In total, 353.6 million smartphones were shipped during 3Q20 and while the market declined, the results were stronger than IDC's previous forecast of a 9% year-over-year decline.
Xiaomi Philippines launched the 5G-powered Mi 10T and Mi 10T Pro smartphones along with the brand’s first smartwatch offering and high-capacity charger.
China-based smartphone brand Tecno Mobile is bringing flagship-level functionalities to midrange and budget segment devices with its two new releases which are both under the P7,000 mark -- the Tecno Mobile Pouvoir 4 and Pouvoir 4 Pro.
On a positive note, IDC said it expects the smartphone market will return to a full recovery by 2022, largely driven by the assumption that smartphones will continue to be the computing platform of choice for most of the world.
The drop comes as no surprise as Q1 marked the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and the peak of the lockdowns in China, which extended to the rest of the world by the end of the quarter.
