Crisis prompts manufacturers to offer cost-efficient gadgets

CEBU, Philippines - While the global economic recession adversely affected the budget and purchasing preferences of most consumers, it however has pulled down the prices of technology and the latest gadgets in the market.

Mobile phone retailer Junrex Holdings Inc. president Jun Yap said that what sustains the dynamic movement of mobile gadgets in the market is the decision of manufacturers to offer more affordable products.

“The crisis helped a lot of suppliers and manufacturers adjust to the market’s preference for affordable, yet quality products,” said Yap.

Also, the availability of quality but cheaper mobile phones, and other technology gadgets made from China, also helped mobile retailers such as Junrex to maintain and achieve its growth target, despite the downbeat buying movement in the market.

Yap admitted that the crisis has brought down the buying interest of consumers, especially for high-end or middle-range mobile phone units. However, the dynamism has now shifted to more affordable, but trendy and quality mobile phones.

He said products made from China, which are of quality is now one of the hottest products consumers are looking for, although there are also sustainable market volume for branded mobile phones.

In a separate interview with Nokia Philippines communications manager Nikka Abes, she said that the company will be introducing chic, affordable new mobiles in 2010, to adjust the market preferences for affordability and quality.

According to Abes Nokia is making conscious efforts to push its entry-level mobile phone models, to cushion the effect of "belt-tightening" measures adopted by Filipino consumers.

This means that the Philippine market will be flooded with more affordable, but fashionable and features-laden mobile phones, that will range only from P1,900 to P5,900 per unit.

"We never pushed entry-level phones before, now we are making conscious efforts to push these kinds of models," said Abes.

Yap said most consumers nowadays no longer mind getting low-end phones in order to save, than buying expensive cellular phone units.

Ng Khai Development Corporation, president Wilson Ng said in a separate interview said sales for technology gadgets had been encouraging despite the economic meltdown especially last year.

Ng attributed the good performance amid the financial difficulties to the manufacturers’ effort to provide inexpensive products, such as the entry of netbooks which are now priced mostly below P20 thousand.

Because of this, Ng said that technology vendors are projecting a gigantic growth for laptop sales compared to desktop starting this year.

In fact in 2009, over 60 percent of the total sales of Ng Khai’s technology retail arm NGenius are notebooks and laptops.

In the corporate market, Ng said the company posted high-single digit performance in 2009, while retail sales registered low-double-digit returns.