Smartphone shipments in Bangladesh grew by 20.6% year-on-year during 2017 to reach a total of 8.1 million devices.
Research firm IDC noted that this healthy growth was achieved despite a weak fourth quarter, which saw the worst uptake for the past six quarters in the wake of natural disasters that occurred during Q3. Other factors included shifts in device offerings as operators gear up to launch 4G, coupled with the clear-out of current stock.
While IDC did not disclose the exact sales figures for Q4, it noted that these factors contributed to a 19% year-on-year fall in shipments for the quarter. Despite the decline, Chinese vendors weathered the storm, increasing their collective market share from 19% in Q4 2016 to 33% for the same period in 2017.
This came at the expense of Bangladeshi vendors, who saw their share fall from 64% to 43%, although they were able to retain most of the positions in the top five vendors ranked by shipments. Symphony came out on top in Q4 with a 29% share, despite seeing its share drop by 48% year-on-year. Transsion took second place from Samsung with a 13% share compared to the Korean firm’s 12%.
Huawei saw its shipments drop dramatically as other Chinese firms moved in on its target audience, putting out devices in the same price bracket. Total device shipments rose by 14.8% year-on-year to 34.2 million units, with over 66% of these made up by feature phones.
