Saudi smartphone market to 'stabilize' after 2018 shipments decline: IDC

The smartphone market in Saudi Arabia is set to "stabilize" this year despite total shipments shrinking 15.3 percent year-on-year to 7.5 million in 2018, a senior executive at International Data Corporation (IDC) told Argaam.

"The days of rapid decline, as we saw since 2016 where the market declined in double digits, are hopefully over. The market is 'stabilizing' and 2019 would see the beginning of the reverse in the declining trend," said Nabila Popal, senior research manager for mobile phones, IDC.

A number of factors such as value-added tax (VAT), reduction of subsidies and (expat) dependent fee led to shrinking of consumer disposable income which directly impacted the purchase of mobile phones, she explained.

According to IDC, Samsung remained the most popular smartphone brand in Saudi Arabia last year, holding a market share of 34.8 percent.

Apple and Huawei were placed second and third, with a market share of 28.4 percent and 19.6 percent, respectively.

Contrary to popular belief, the majority of consumers in the Kingdom were “very price conscious”, focusing more on the price-to-features ratio, she stated.

Globally, IDC said 1.4 billion smartphones were sold last year, marking a 4.1 percent decline with shipments shrinking 4.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Write to Parag Deulgaonkar at parag.d@argaamplus.com