There’s no denying that the phone market in the Southeast Asia (SEA) region is very competitive, with various brands duking it out to take the top spot. A report by Canalys for March 2024 has revealed a few surprising findings: in the SEA region, the Philippines has the second biggest phone market next to Indonesia, and Xiaomi is the second biggest brand in the region next to Samsung. 

With a 21% shipment share in the SEA region, Canalys said that the Philippines experienced an impressive 77% year-on-year growth for the phone market, showing that it has recovered from the effects of the pandemic. The big chunk of the competition is in the low-end segment, where brands like Xiaomi, realme, and Transsion (Infinix, itel, TECNO) have been competing very well in this segment.

While Canalys said in its Q4 2023 report that Transsion is the top brand in the SEA region, Samsung is the most dominant brand for January, and Xiaomi is at a close second. Xiaomi had a great run in January 2024 with an annual growth of 128% thanks to back-to-back releases that include the Redmi Note 13 series, POCO X6 series, and POCO M6 Pro–all of them targeting the highly lucrative mid-range, under Php 20k price segment.

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Transsion, on the other hand, was able to place third for January 2024 and experienced a 190% annual growth thanks to good sales from Infinix’s HOT 40 series and TECNO’s Spark 20 series.