HTC sees smartphone share of phone market in Phl to double

MANILA, Philippines - Taiwan-based smartphone maker HTC Corp. said it expects the share of smartphones to total mobile phones in the Philippines to surge from the present 20 percent to double or triple in the coming years.

HTC South Asia president Lennard Hoornik and HTC Philippines country manager Mark Dewey Sergio said they currently account for about 15 percent share of the local market for smartphones. “We are very optimistic about our growth in the Philippines, considering how adaptive Filipinos are, and that the Philippines is not only the text messaging capital of the world, it has also become the social networking capital too,” they pointed out.

“Our goal is to make the Philippines an even bigger social networking capital of the world,” Hoornik added.

Data gathered by market research firm ComScore from January to April 2011 revealed that Internet users in the Philippines spent 41.3 percent of their time online on Facebook, the most from any country, edging out Russia (39.7 percent) and Venezuela (33.2 percent). Comscore also said the Philippines is the number one country in terms of Facebook penetration with over 92.9 percent of its Internet population visiting the site frequently.

Wireless leader Smart Communications and HTC have entered into an exclusive partnership to offer the latter’s most advanced devices to the Philippine market.

The partnership signals a more aggressive and concerted move from the two industry leaders to continue driving the Philippine smartphone revolution, in a worldwide market estimated to grow 55 percent year-on-year in 2011 by the International Data Corp. (IDC).

Hoornik and Sergio said the Philippines has 30 to 35 million online users, of which 98 percent access social networking sites (SNS). “A lot of Internet usage is still done here through public shared use, but as smartphones become smarter and cheaper, we expect social networking to be the next mobile killer application just like what SMS used to be. In five years’ time, there will just be two types of phones – the smartphones and the basic phones,” they noted.

Smart chief wireless advisor Orlando Vea said in the last couple of years, they have increasingly focused their resources on designing and rolling out services, such as their first-to-market unlimited data plans, and optimizing their nationwide wireless networks, which together, encourage the massive shift to smartphone use among Filipino mobile subscribers.

Smart recently reported a 102 percent increase in the number of smartphone users in its network from February to May this year, particularly those using handsets that run on Google’s Android operating system.

“Our alliance with HTC is key to our smartphone strategy of providing the best network, complemented by the best plans, to power the best devices, in order to create the best customer experience,” Vea added.

HTC has sold about 9.7 million smartphones worldwide, an increase of 192 percent year-on-year, a feat it intends to repeat locally. To this end, it has been bringing in the world’s most advanced devices to the country, introducing more Filipinos to the latest, most intelligent and stunning features found in a mobile device.

It recently introduced the HTC Desire S, the HTC Wildfire S and the HTC Sensation, all exclusively available to Smart subscribers at various plans that all come with unlimited data usage.

Underpinning this development is the common stake in the promotion among Filipinos of the use of Android, now reported to be the best-selling smartphone operating syste, (OS), and estimated to grow to more than 40 percent of the market in the second half of 2011.

Smart, which has made Android a cornerstone of its ‘Internet for All’ objective, is now also the chief promoter of the OS in the country.

“The timing of the arrival of the Android OS fits perfectly into Smart’s strategy of providing Internet for all. Our network and system are ready to provide data services; the challenge lies in the devices through which our subscribers may access the Internet. Android, being free and open-source, makes it possible for manufacturers like HTC to offer feature-packed, data-capable phones at more affordable price points,” Vea pointed out.

Further to the agreement between Smart and HTC, Facebook Mobile partner Smart is offering another option to its 46.6 million subscribers to access and enjoy the social networking giant’s services, through the HTC Chacha, the world’s first real Facebook phone. It is the first handset built entirely to be social, exclusively available via Smart, and it will come free with an unlimited data plan.

At present, about four to five percent of Smart’s subscribers use smartphones, but company officials said they expect huge growth in the coming years.