IDC: realme tops the Philippines smartphone market in Q4 2021 and the entire year

The International Data Corporation today released its Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker for the Philippine market. It showed the top 5 vendors in the country for the last quarter and the entire 2021 as well as its forecast in 2022.

File photo: realme 8i

Strong numbers from the Chinese mobile giants

For the last quarter of 2021, it showed that realme retained its top spot by capturing 20.6 percent of the market with 1,030 shipments despite having a YoY decline of 6.1 percent. vivo is at number 2 with 16 percent of the pie followed by Transsion (itel, Infinix, TECNO) with 14.5 percent of the share.

IDC's data

At number 4 is OPPO with 14 percent even if its YoY growth is negative 40.2 percent. Number 5 brand Samsung failed to beat the top 4 Chinese mobile companies despite recording a 17.7 percent YoY growth.

The success of realme last quarter could be attributed to its C-series that accounted for more than 70 percent of its total shipments.

For the entire 2021

For the entire 2021, leader realme shipped 3.96 million units nationwide to capture 22.2 percent of the market share. Number 2 player OPPO shipped 2.62 million units followed by Transsion with 2.47 million, Samsung with 2.40 million, and vivo with 2.39 million.

IDC's report also showed more and more Filipinos are switching to smartphones with 4G and 5G as the feature phone market shrank by 41 percent YoY.

With the rollout of 5G networks across the country, the growth will be driven by 5G smartphones, which made up 12.7% of shipments in 2021. The share is expected to double in 2022. In addition, aggressive pricing among Chinese vendors has dragged the average price for 5G Android smartphones down from US$471 in 4Q20 to US$386 in 4Q21, with some 5G models priced less than US$200” says Angela Medez, Client Devices Market Analyst at IDC Philippines.

The feature phone market shrank by 41% YoY from 3.9 million in 2020 to only 2.3 million in 2021, its largest decline ever due to the shrinking footprint of local vendors and slower traction in the market for feature phones as telcos migrated consumers to 4G and 5G, she added.

Shipments to retail channels are expected to bounce back in 2022, as foot traffic continues to increase in the shopping malls, where most of the key smartphone stores and kiosks are located in the larger cities. The vendors are expected to restart their retail expansion and open more stores across the country, which had taken a hiatus during the lockdown periods, she added.

IDC shared that the country's smartphone market declined by 5.6 percent YoY, but it expects double-digit growth in 2022 as the market recovers from a weak 2021H2 and as supply constraints ease.

To read IDC's entire report, click here.