Indonesia Makes Up Asia Pacific's Third Largest Smartphone Market
Jakarta. The number of smartphone users in Indonesia is expected to grow between 30 percent to 50 percent annually over the next three years, placing it as third largest market in the region thanks to the proliferation of cheap 4G enabled smartphones, Indonesia Cell Phone Association (APSI) revealed on Friday (29/04).
Smartphone users would reach reach 65.2 million this year and 92 million in 2019, according to an estimate from New York-based independent market research company eMarketer. There were 55.4 million smartphone users in Indonesia in 2015.
"The presence of cheaper 4G smartphones would push people to own smartphones to make their activities easier," Lee Kang Hyun, APSI deputy chairman said.
Indonesians now prefer smartphones over feature phones due to its versatility to store important data, make video calls and to watch streaming services, Lee said.
Indonesia is now the third biggest smartphone market in the Asia-Pacific region just behind China and India. Smartphone users in China are expected to reach 563.3 million this year, grew from 525.8 million last year.
India will also see 204.1 million of its population to use smartphone this year, up from last year's 167.9 million.
The growth rate and sheer number of users alone put Indonesia among the most important markets for smartphone makers, a Massachusetts-based data analyst International Data Corporation (IDC).
South Korean phone maker Samsung had sold 7.3 million smartphones in Indonesia last year, controlling 25 percent of the market.
Taiwan-based phone maker Asus followed with 4.7 million smartphones, accounting for 16 percent of the market. Local manufacturers Smartfren and Advan, came in third and fourth places, controlling 11 percent and 9.6 percent of the local market respectively.
Still, Indonesia needs to improve its internet coverage and quality first to really benefit from the trend, according to the Global Connectivity Index (GCI) 2016 survey by Huawei, the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. Indonesia is ranked 41 from 50 countries surveyed in terms of communication and internet connectivity, up two places from a year earlier due to the government's efforts to provide fiber optic infrastructure across the archipelago.
The survey concluded that investment in digital infrastructure is closely linked to gross domestic product growth as it improves the efficiency and productivity.
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