Report: Smartphones only have 19% penetration rate in Asia

November 30, 2011 by  

While cutting-edge iOS and Android smartphones have been hogging the headlines lately, it is the feature phones that are still dominant in Asia.

Market analysis firm VisionMobile has estimated in a report that smartphones only have a 19 percent penetration rate in Asia, due to the prevalence of cost-sensitive developing markets.

The report also revealed that smartphones have a 50 percent peneration rate in developed markets but less than 20 percent in developing markets. For instance, 46 percent of Singaporean mobile phone users own smartphones, leading the region.

Things could change rapidly in some emergent markets however. Almost half of netizens who do not own smartphones in Southeast Asia have the intent of purchasing one in the near future.

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