GfK sees healthy Philippine consumer electronics market

Manila, Philippines -  Digital cameras, tablet computers, LCD TVs and smartphones. These today are the top consumer electronics that many Filipinos with enough disposable income are buying, especially those who are increasingly leading digital and mobile lifestyles.

Filipinos, based on several market reports by industry research firm GfK, are feeding demand for these prime tech products the same way citizens from other Southeast Asian countries do. In a May 2012 GfK sales report for tablet computers in SEA, it tracked the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam as countries with consistently expanding quarterly sales of tablet computers. Collectively, these countries snapped 1.6 million units of tablet computers for the whole 2011 valued at $962 million or an average of $600 per tablet.

“Tablet sales, which started off on a slower note at the beginning of the year, has definitely taken off in this part of the world, as reflected by the exponential growth within the year,” said Gerard Tan, account director for digital technology at GfK Asia.

The same auspicious market trend is seen by GfK for smartphone sales in the region. Again, the Philippines joins its neighbors  Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Cambodia  in a growth momentum that recorded sales of nearly 7.7 million smartphone units worth almost $2.4 billion in the first three months of 2012 alone.

GfK Asia said all seven key markets registered spikes in demand for smartphones in the range of 40 to 400 percent more over the same period last year. However, Gfk Asia emphasized that while the smartphone revolution is in full swing not all consumers are fully converted yet as one in three mobile phones sold last quarter was still a feature phone.

Share of smartphones nonetheless has correspondingly been rising and today contributes more than 66 percent to the overall mobile phone pie, up from last year’s 50 percent in the first quarter, the report added.

“The largest smartphone market in this region expectedly is Indonesia which has a smartphone penetration rate of 62 percent and enjoyed sales exceeding $1.4 billion last quarter,” Tan said.

“Meanwhile, the markets with deepest smartphone penetration are Malaysia and Singapore where levels have already reached a high of 88 percent, which makes almost nine out of every 10 in the general population a smartphone user,” Tan added.

 Picture perfect

Leading manufacturers of LCD TVs and digital cameras that do business in SEA are also experiencing high demand for their products.

GfK Asia said consumers in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam have spent over $2.1 billion on 6.33 million units of TV sets during the first six months of 2011. The growth is highest in the LCD TV segment which achieved nearly 30 percent more in value sales compared to the same period in 2010.

Jasmine Lim, regional account director for consumer electronics at GfK Asia, said the prevalent consumer trend of upgrading from the traditional CRT TV to the newer flat-panel LCD TV is apparent in the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

She added though that CRT TV sales, despite declining, continue to occupy over a third of each countries’ volume share of TV sales.

“These countries present wealth of opportunities for TV manufacturers with the latest technologies and who are seeking to penetrate further into this region,” Lim said.

“On the other hand, in Singapore retailers have completely phased out selling CRT TV and we see a significantly higher proportion of sales derived from plasma TVs and LCD TVs, both with and without LED backlight,” she added.

Meanwhile, Smart TV or TV with Web content access is one of the most recent TV technologies gaining acceptance in the region. In SEA, sales of Smart TV have been increasing steadily and in terms of level of acceptance on a country level, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia are leading with Smart TV unit take-up rates of 20, 14 and 14 percent, Lim said.

Something good also came out from Filipinos’ heightened love of the camera. No other gadget has the power to instantly pull Filipinos in a tight huddle than a camera aimed at them, a behavior that favors camera vendors in the country. According to GfK Asia, while Hong Kong and South Korea remain the biggest markets for digital cameras, the Philippines is one of the fastest expanding countries for this product.

The camera type that appeals most to the mass market  the compact cameras without changeable lens  continues to grow, said GfK Asia. Increasing demand for this item has been observed, again, in emerging markets like the Philippines and Vietnam.