realme’s years-long domination comes to an end after it was dethroned from the top spot during the first quarter of 2023.
As per market analytics firm IDC, Transsion is now in the top spot in terms of unit shipments in the Philippines. Transsion is the company behind Infinix, TECNO Mobile, as well as Itel who’s yet to gain steam in the Philippines.
As per IDC, TECNO Mobile managed to pull a 33.7% year-over-year increase and an even more impressive 107.8% quarter-over-quarter growth for Q1 2023. That’s more than 50% of Transsion’s total shipments, beating sister company Infinix.
Thanks to those figures, Transsion was able to end realme‘s two-year streak as the top smartphone brand in the Philippines in terms of smartphone shipments.
OPPO took the third spot with a 15.5% share, vivo with 13.1%, and Xiaomi at 11.9%.
While the difficulties brought by the pandemic have already eased, it is now the rising inflation that’s causing difficulties in market conditions.
For Q1 2023, the overall local smartphone market declined by 16.7% QoQ and 11% YoY as shipments were only 3.5 million units. As per IDC analyst Angela Medez, the last time shipments hit this low was in Q1 2020 when the lockdown was first implemented.
Medez said that they anticipate shipments to stay flat in 2023 as companies “will remain cautious with inflation still above comfortable levels.”