Mobile Phone in Taiwan

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increase in volume sales within smartphones in Taiwan of 54%. During the year, the company launched "Smartphone Attachable Lens-style Camera" which attracted consumers’ attention and boosted both the sales of mobile phone and attachable lens-style camera. The best performing Sony smartphone in 2013 was Xperia Z1 because of its high performance specifications. Moreover, in 2014, Sony will close down its portable computer department and concentrate on the major

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MOBILE PHONES IN TAIWAN

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income categories namely cameras and mobile phones, making this brand a product to watch out for in 2014 for smartphones.

 Within mobile phones, international players heavily dominated, with only local manufacturer HTC Corp standing out. Taiwanese player HTC Corp was the third-placed company in Taiwan in 2013 within mobile phones.

 As a local player, HTC Corp gained support from the local media and social media commentators. Its success was also due to Taiwanese strong support in general for local brands. The company did not concentrate on the low-medium price segment within smartphones, and the brand image in the high-end segment was contested by other leading international brands such as Samsung. In 2013, HTC introduced new smartphone models in the US that had better specifications and at lower prices. This news shocked Taiwanese consumers, and many locals launched "Refuse to buy HTC" campaigns. Chunghwa Telecom cooperated with HTC to launch the lowest price mobile phone plan, but growth of HTC smartphones slowed considerably in 2013 as compared to previous years’ strong growth.

PROSPECTS

 Mobile phones in Taiwan will continue to record growth over the forecast period. The strong growth experienced by smartphones over the review period is expected to slow down, as a greater percentage of the total population already own such phones. Increasing unlimited mobile internet, cheaper smartphones and increasing use of smartphones for social media, messaging and free VoIP calls will stimulate smartphone uptake and upgrades amongst consumers. Feature phone demand is projected to further decline rapidly over the forecast period.

 The transition from feature phones to smartphones will continue such that towards the end of the forecast period, feature phones will comprise just a very small proportion of overall phone sales. Feature phone consumers are expected to be mostly made up of older people over the forecast period. Phone features and use will focus on this group.

 Taiwanese increasingly favour smartphones with larger screen sizes such as 5-inch. The success of this screen size was witnessed by brands such as Samsung Galaxy Note, Xiaomi and Nokia that experienced healthy sales performance. Tablets will not be seen as a threat to such large screen smartphones as use of tablets for Taiwanese will also shift towards using a tablet for both work and entertainment, while use of smartphones is more for entertainment. Previously, tablets were also used mainly for playing mobile games, reading web content with larger screen size and watching videos. However, tablet manufacturers in Taiwan have shifted to producing hybrid convertible tables with detachable keyboards that encouraged consumers to also work using tablets.

 Android is expected to remain the largest operating system due to the large number of companies manufacturing Android phones, as well as the large and growing number of apps. Windows operating system will be expected to record an increase in share in the early part of the forecast period, following a drop in share in 2013 due to the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft. Nokia is focused on launching smartphones with larger screen sizes which is greatly in line with the rising trend in Taiwan. It is expected that Windows operating system will continue to erode some shares from Android as well as iOS.

 In 2014, leading telecommunications company Chunghwa Telecom will launch 4G LTE (Long- Term Evolution) network in Taiwan. Five other telecom operators in Taiwan namely Asia Pacific Telecom, Far EasTone Telecommunications Co., Taiwan Mobile, Taiwan Star and Ambit Microsystems have also obtained 4G licenses. Taiwan Star, a telecommunication arm of conglomerate Ting Hsin International Group, formally announced a bid in May 2014 to

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MOBILE PHONES IN TAIWAN

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acquire Asia Pacific Telecom to consolidate the resources of the two companies in 4G LTE operation. This is in the face of Taiwan’s current telecom operators facing stiff competition against each other because the market appears more crowded than in other countries.

CATEGORY DATA

Table 1

’000 units

Feature Phones Smartphones Mobile Phones

Sales of Mobile Phones by Category: Volume 2008-2013

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

5,801.5 5,569.4 5,263.1 3,684.2 2,689.5 644.6 805.8 1,369.8 4,040.9 5,354.2

2013

1,479.2 7,228.2 8,707.4

2013

2,263.0 71,833.5 74,096.4

Table 2

TWD million

Feature Phones Smartphones Mobile Phones

Sales of Mobile Phones by Category: Value 2008-2013

6,446.1 6,375.2 6,632.9 7,725.1

8,043.6

Source: Euromonitor International from official statistics, trade associations, trade press, company research, store checks, trade interviews, trade sources

Source:

Table 3

Source:

Table 4

Source:

Euromonitor International from official statistics, trade associations, trade press, company research, store checks, trade interviews, trade sources

Sales of Mobile Phones by Category: % Volume Growth 2008-2013

Euromonitor International from official statistics, trade associations, trade press, company research, store