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Singapore Management University, Master of IT in Business Analytics | Marketing Analytics
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Asia Pacific Smartphone Market Outlook from 2015
to 2021
Market Trend | Where to invest | Who to look out for
By Priyadarshini Majumdar
5th August 2017
Why Read This Report
The Smartphone market ever since
its inception has seen an exorbitant
rise in popularity proving itself
worthy of investment. It has ever
since been an attractive investment
option for a variety of different kinds
of investors.
This report looks through Canalys
data on smartphone shipment and
installed base for APAC published in
2017. It unearths the trends seen
since 2015, forecasts the future
shipment and installed base and
highlights certain key smartphone
vendors who should be looked out
for.
Key Takeaways
Demand for Smartphones in APAC is expected to
grow by 25.8% by 2021. In 2015 the total number of
installed base was 1.69B which grew by 21.3% to
2.05B in 2017 and is expected to grow by 25.8% to
2.58B in 2021. APAC’s demand for Smartphones sees
an upward trend. Clearly APAC is just beginning to get
dazzled by the Smartphone lustre
High-Income countries slow down while Mid-
Income countries are beginning to grow. The market
has shifted. Smartphone demands in High-Income
countries in APAC grew by 7.1% from 2015 to 2017. It
is expected to grow by another 6.6% from 2017 to
2021. This is in stark contrast with the Mid-Income
countries which grew by 22.9 % from 2015 to 2017
and is expected to grow by 27.3% from 2017 to 2021.
Other smaller smartphone platforms have a growing
demand in China. Other platforms here refer to
smartphones that run on platforms other than
Android, iOS and Windows. China’s demand for these
platforms has grown by 42.5% in 2017 and is expected
to grow by 40.8% in 2021. These phones continue to
have an oversupply.
Rise of Oppo and Vivo in China. Oppo and Vivo are
the new kids in the block with stunning growth rates.
Oppo just in China, grew by 69% from 2015 and Vivo
since its debut in 2016, grew by 29% sending Xiaomi
and Samsung to a decline
Who Is This Report For
This report is targeted at
smartphone vendors who play are
major role in creating the market,
retail investors, Institutional
investors and just about anyone
who is interested in the
Smartphone market in general
2 | P a g e
Singapore Management University, Master of IT in Business Analytics | Marketing Analytics
Asia Pacific Smartphone Market Outlook
from 2016 to 2021
By Priyadarshini Majumdar
5th August 2017
Table of Contents
Insights
3 Demand for Smartphones in APAC is expected to grow by 25.8% by 2021
4 High-Income countries slow down while Mid-Income countries are beginning to grow
6 Other smaller smartphone platforms have a growing demand in China
7 Rise of Oppo and Vivo in China
Recommendations
9 For Smartphone Vendors and Investors
Notes & Resources
This report is an analytical report written for the completion of the Marketing Analytics course
offered as a part of the SMU Master of IT in Business Analytics course. The datasets analysed
were collected by Canalys. This report merges two different datasets:
1. The Canalys vendor sales 2017 data set. This data set gives information of the
smartphone vendors in the APAC region and their shipments over the quarters from
2015 to 2017
2. The Canalys 2017 Mobilephone/Smartphone installed base forecast data set that
contains installed base numbers for the APAC region by platform: iOS, Andriod,
Windows and Others.
Excel was the key tool used in forecasting the shipment numbers in the shipment data set
using its in-built trend function. Tableau was subsequently used in the cleaning, merging and
visualisation of these numbers.
Singapore Management University, Master of IT in Business Analytics | Marketing Analytics
Demand for Smartphones in APAC is expected to grow by 25.8% by
2021
Installed base is defined as a measure of the number of units of a particular type of product,
often computers, that have been sold and are being used by customers. Since it directly
represents the user behavior, it is a fair indicator of the rising demand.
As shown in Figure1, the demand for smartphones has seen an upward trend before 2017 and is
Figure 1: Installed Base vs Shipment Forecasts in APAC
