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UAE, Saudi Arabia drive mobile phone demand in GCC

dubai - Overall shipments in the GCC for the first quarter of the year totalled 6.1 million units

The GCC mobile phone market marked a positive start to the year, with the UAE and Saudi Arabia driving demand for the first quarter of the year.
According to the latest figures announced by the International Data Corporation (IDC), overall shipments in the GCC for the first quarter of the year totalled 6.1 million units, up 2.4 per cent on Q4 2016. Shipments to the UAE and Saudi Arabia were up 4.3 per cent and 5.1 per cent respectively. While the results represent a second consecutive period of quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) growth, it is crucial to note that the market is still way below the levels it used to be.

"Consumer buying behaviour cannot be changed overnight," says Kafil Merchant, a research analyst at IDC. "Additionally, the lack of available credit in the channel is also dampening the shipment of mobile phones into the country, with many channel players pessimistic about the chances of the Saudi market returning to its previous levels anytime soon."

Samsung continued to lead the GCC smartphone market in Q1 2017 with a 28 per cent share. The vendor's shipments were up five per cent QoQ, but this does not include S8 and S8+ plus shipments. Apple remained in second place with a 19.8 per cent share, but saw impressive QoQ growth of 10 per cent.

"Apple recorded the largest QoQ shipment growth of the region's top five vendors," says Nabila Popal, a senior research manager at IDC. "This can be directly attributed to the success of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus models, which accounted for over 60 per cent of the brand's volume in Q1 2017. The gap in the market created by the Samsung Note 7 was still prevalent in Q1, and Apple's flagship model capitalised on that gap. It will be interesting to see how this dynamic plays out over the coming quarters with the success of Samsung's S8 and S8+ devices."  

The popularity of both brands in the region mimic international trends, experts say. However, Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei, Oppo and Vivo are proving to be increasingly popular with their competitively priced models.

Over 380 million smartphone units were sold to end-users in the first quarter of 2017, a 9.1 per cent increase over the first quarter of 2016, according to Gartner. Huawei, Oppo and Vivo's combined market share in the first quarter of 2017 accounted for 24 per cent, up seven percentage points year on year.

"The top three Chinese smartphone manufacturers are driving sales with their competitively-priced, high quality smartphones equipped with innovative features," said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner.

"2017 will be a challenging year for all brands and it will be interesting to see who survives this major shift in the landscape and whether there is a reshuffle in the rankings of the top players," said Popal. "We also have Nokia coming back, in the mid-ASP category initially, where many brands like Lenovo and Huawei have already marked their territory, and this is creating a lot of excitement in the channel. One thing's for sure, this will be the space to watch for a highly competitive battle and possible shift in market share."

- rohma@khaleejtimes.com