According to our latest research from Market Monitor program for Q1 2015 (Jan-Mar), Bangladesh Handset Market declined 33% sequentially and grew 4% Y-o-Y as overall market shrunk due to seasonality and decline in featurephone shipments. Apart from this the high sell-in during late 4Q 2014 on account of Chinese New Year also lead to decline in shipments during the quarter. Below is a brief summary of the trends during the quarter.
Market Summary:
- Bangladesh mobile phone market declined 33% sequentially and grew 4% Y-o-Y.
- Smartphone market grew 2% sequentially and 17% Y-o-Y
- Smartphone shipments contributed to 21% of the total mobile phone shipments, signaling that more vendors have now greater mix of smartphones in their device portfolio
- Symphony mobile leads by a distance in both overall mobile phone and the fast-growing smartphone sub-segment with a market share of 37% and 38% respectively. It enjoys not only a healthy market share in the nation but also good mind share among its end consumer by catering to their needs and preferences
- Symphony V25, a US$60 retail 4” smartphone model was Symphony’s best-selling model in Bangladesh during the quarter
- Samsung however bounced back during the quarter and ended up at second position in overall mobile phone and the smartphone sub-segment with 7.2% and 23.4% share respectively
- Surprisingly, Samsung Tizen based Z1 expanded its reach beyond India and got off to a positive start in Bangladesh, initial sell-in remained healthy and was the number one smartphone model in the entire country
- Walton continues to target the market with its smartphone only strategy which is paying-off as the vendor occupied third spot in smartphone segment with 9.5% market share. Its leaner smartphone portfolio in the primo series is doing well in the entry to mid-level smartphone segment
- Microsoft entry level Lumia portfolio especially Lumia 535 and Lumia 532 helped the vendor to clinch the fourth spot in smartphone segment with a market share of 5.4% during the quarter
- Indian top brand Lava entered Bangladesh in 2013 and since then has significant progress marking is entry into top five smartphone brands capturing a market share of 4.9% during the quarter. E.g. Lava Iris X1 was their best-selling model followed by Lava Iris X1 mini
- Domestic brands like Winmax and Winstar which continue to among top five feature phone brands are yet to make a mark on the smartphone segment but giving their reach and understanding the local users we might see some aggressive smartphone launches from them in coming quarters
- Although Bangladesh handset market is not as crowded as rest of Asian markets but inability to understand and cater to local consumers along with regulatory barriers makes it difficult for some of the global players to enter or expand their reach in the nation. This is helping established and emerging local players to grow faster than the international brands leveraging their local market knowledge, relationships and cost-competitiveness sourcing from the same Shenzhen ecosystem
The comprehensive and in-depth 1Q 2015 Bangladesh Market Monitor is available for subscribing clients. Please feel free to reach out to us at analyst@counterpointresearch.com for further questions regarding our in-depth latest research, insights or press enquiries.
The Market Monitor research is based on sell-in (shipments) estimates based on vendor’s IR results, vendor polling triangulated with sell-through (sales), supply chain checks and secondary research.
