|
Smartphones battle for market share
The domestic smartphone market will continue to develop further this year due to increasing competition among smartphone providers.
In 2009, Nokia and HTC were fierce competitors in the market of officially-imported smartphones, while the iPhone dominated the unofficially-imported smartphone market.
The iPhone will be officially imported to Viet Nam this year and will be distributed by the largest mobile phone service providers in the domestic market, including MobiFone, Vinaphone and Viettel.
Last month, the three providers announced they completed negotiations with Apple in order to distribute the iPhone in the country.
Nguyen Manh Hung, Viettel Deputy General Director, believes that smartphones have a lot of potential in Viet Nam.
The officially-imported iPhone will now have to compete with the unofficially-imported iPhone because the latter will be much cheaper. An import tax of 5 percent and a value added tax of 10 per cent will make the officially-imported iPhone much more expensive.
Mobile World Company estimated that approximately 3,000 units of iPhones were imported unofficially in 2009, with the average retail price of the phone being between VND7 million (US$368.4) and VND17 million ($894.7).
The market share of officially-imported and unofficially-imported smartphones will change this year because of this new distribution deal, said Dinh Anh Huan, Mobile World Company Business Manager.
Smartphones accounted for 4-6 per cent of Mobile World Company's phones that were sold last year, which earned on average VND4.5 million per unit, said Huan.
Nguyen Hong Chau, a representative of the HTC Viet Nam Company, said HTC's smartphone volume last year increased by five times compared with 2008 and accounted for 15 per cent of the domestic market.
Smartphone revenue increased in recent years and now accounts for 13 percent of the domestic mobile phone market, reported the GfK market research company.
In February 2009, Acer unveiled its first smartphone and currently has five different smartphone models. Dell also began marketing its first smartphone last month in China and Brazil. Meanwhile, Lenovo is developing its own smartphone, which will be sold in China this year.
Nokia has a strategy to upgrade its existing software and create luxury models of smartphones in order to compete with new models from computer companies like Apple.
vietnamnews
|
