VietNamNet Bridge – What will be the smart phone like in the near future? Experts believe that smart phones will completely replace feature phones and they will have the features to be used like personal computers. The smart phones running on Android are believed to dominate the market.

A Google’s survey has found that smart phone has led to the big changes in consumption behaviors. It is quite popular nowadays in Vietnam to access to Internet with smart phones.

The number of smart phones sold in Vietnam in 2013 is estimated to surpass the 17 millionth threshold. According to GFK, 40 percent of the total mobile phones sold by the end of the third quarter of 2013 were smart phones.

Feature phones will be replaced with smart phones

Nguyen Van Dao, Deputy General Director of Samsung Vietnam Electronics, believes that smart phones would become more popular in Vietnam which would gradually replace feature phones.

A report of GFK showed that Vietnam and Thailand were the two markets which saw the fastest sales growth rates in South East Asia in the first nine months of the year.

During that time, Singaporean, Malaysian, Thai, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Filipino consumers spent $10.8 billion to buy 41.5 million smart phones. The smart phone sales in South East Asian markets in the first three quarters of 2013 were 61 percent higher than the same period of the last year.

IDC has predicted that the sales of smart phones may outstrip the sales of feature phones by the second quarter of 2014. The smart phone purchasing power has been increasing thanks to the higher demand and the diversified products which fit different pockets.

Vo Le Tam Thanh from IDC Vietnam noted that smart phones have been step by step encroaching on the feature phones’ market share, and tablet market share as well.

Manufacturers have recently marketed a lot of smart phones with large screens of 5.7-6.4 inches used as tablets.

Ngo Nguyen Kha, General Director of Mobile Star, which owns Mobiistar brand, believes that users nowadays use smart phones in a more effective ways because they can exploit the features associated with Internet. The strong development mobile Internet has partially contributed to the increased smart phone purchasing power.

Smart phones will be used like PCs

The sales of desktop computers and laptops have been decreasing sharply. Distributors have to lower the selling prices of laptops and Ultrabook sharply in order to attract more buyers.

Phan Thi Hoang Yen, an analyst of IDC Vietnam, has confirmed that both laptops and desktop computers have been selling slowly since the beginning of the year. Especially, the laptop sales have dropped dramatically.

Ultrabook proves to be less competitive in comparison with tablets and phablets due to the high prices and limited designs.

Meanwhile, users have got used to tablets and smart phones to replace laptops and ultrabooks. All the operations of reading news, sending/receiving emails and compiling texts can be done with tablets or smart phones.

Android smart phones dominate the market

According to IDC, the mobile devices running on Android now account for 81 percent of the total 211.6 million smart phones sold worldwide in the third quarter of 2013. Meanwhile, iOS smart phones account for 12.9 percent and Windows Phone 3.6 percent.

Mai Chi