Curious about how consumer technology sales performed in the first half of 2009 in Asia? The numbers show something pretty interesting, namely the fact that while most consumer technology sales literally dropped by more than a few percents, one industry in particular did quite well. And by that I am referring to the “smartphone” industry. Smartphone sales seem to have received quite a boost with an increase of 142 percent in Asia.

"Although this latest GfK Market Insight Asia report reflects slower than expected performance, the most successful manufacturers will still pull in sales at the retail cash register through marketing specials and providing the most up-to-date and sough after technology. As demonstrated consumer spending has been slowed by the ongoing recession, however there is still room for retail therapy. While it is true that consumers will look for good deals on electronic products and even wait for IT fairs to make purchases, there is proof that they are still making purchases," said Frans Janssen, Managing Director, GfK Asia.

This does not come as a surprise since smartphones have the advantage of being very versatile mobile devices, something that most people (especially in technologically advanced countries such as Japan) really want from their phones. People don't want a lot of gadgets for many purposes, people want one gadget to do it all. And that gadget is definitely the smartphone.

Ending with another quote regarding the Asian situation, “Smartphones led the pack in the Asian retail technology market for the 1st half of the year. In Hong Kong, four out of every 10 phones sold is now a smartphone. And in Korea, smartphones had a zero market share in the first half of last year, and this year they had 30% of the market.”


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