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By Jeremy Wagstaff | Reuters
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Apple Inc's iconic iPhone is losing some of its luster
among Asia's well-heeled consumers in Singapore and Hong Kong, a victim of
changing mobile habits and its own runaway success.
Driven by a combination of iPhone fatigue, a desire to be different and a
plethora of competing devices, users are turning to other brands, notably those
from Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, eating into Apple's market share.
In Singapore, Apple's products were so dominant in 2010 that more devices here
ran its iOS operating system per capita than anywhere else in the world.
But StatCounter http://gs.statcounter.com, which measures traffic collected
across a network of 3 million websites, calculates that Apple's share of mobile
devices in Singapore - iPad and iPhone - declined sharply last year. From a
peak of 72 percent in January 2012, its share fell to 50 percent this month,
while Android devices now account for 43 percent of the market, up from 20
percent in the same month last year.
In Hong Kong, devices running Apple's iOS now account for about 30 percent of
the total, down from about 45 percent a year ago. Android accounts for nearly
two-thirds.
"Apple is still viewed as a prestigious brand, but there are just so many other
cool smartphones out there now that the competition is just much stiffer," said
Tom Clayton, chief executive of Singapore-based Bubble Motion http://
www.bubblemotion.com, which develops a popular regional social media app called
Bubbly.
Where Hong Kong and Singapore lead, other key markets across fast-growing Asia
usually follow.
"Singapore and Hong Kong tend to be, from an electronics perspective, leading
indicators on what is going to be hot in Western Europe and North America, as
well as what is going to take off in the region," said Jim Wagstaff, who runs a
Singapore-based company called Jam Factory http://www.jamfactoryonline.com
developing mobile apps for enterprises.
Southeast Asia is adopting smartphones fast - consumers spent 78 percent more
on smartphones in the 12 months up to September 2012 than they did the year
before, according to research company GfK http://www.gfkrt.com.
IN WITH THE YOUNG CROWD
Anecdotal evidence of iPhone fatigue isn't hard to find: Where a year ago
iPhones swamped other devices on the subways of Hong Kong and Singapore they
are now outnumbered by Samsung and HTC Corp smartphones.
While this is partly explained by the proliferation of Android devices, from
the cheap to the fancy, there are other signs that Apple has lost followers.
Singapore entrepreneur Aileen Sim, recently launched an app for splitting bills
called BillPin http://www.billpin.com, settling on an iOS version because that
was the dominant platform in the three countries she was targeting - Singapore,
India and the United States.
"But what surprised us was how strong the call for Android was when we launched
our app," she said.
Indeed, 70 percent of their target users - 20-something college students and
fresh graduates - said they were either already on Android or planned to switch
over.
"Android is becoming really hard to ignore, around the region and in the U.S.
for sure, but surprisingly even in Singapore," she said. "Even my younger
early-20s cousins are mostly on Android now."
BillPin launched an Android version this month.
Napoleon Biggs, chief strategy officer at Gravitas Group http://
www.gravitas.com.hk, a Hong Kong-based mobile marketing company, said that
while Apple and the iPhone remained premium brands there, Samsung's promotional
efforts were playing to an increasingly receptive audience.
For some, it is a matter of wanting to stand out from the iPhone-carrying
crowd. Others find the higher-powered, bigger-screened Android devices better
suited to their changing habits - watching video, writing Chinese characters -
while the cost of switching devices is lower than they expected, given that
most popular social and gaming apps are available for both platforms.
"Hong Kong is a very fickle place," Biggs said.
Janet Chan, a 25-year-old Hong Kong advertising executive, has an iPhone 5 but
its fast-draining battery and the appeal of a bigger screen for watching movies
is prodding her to switch to a Samsung Galaxy Note II.
"After Steve Jobs died, it seems the element of surprise in product launches
isn't that great anymore," she said.
To be sure, there are still plenty of people buying Apple devices. Stores
selling their products in places such as Indonesia were full over the Christmas
holidays, and the company's new official store in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay has
queues snaking out of the door most days.
But the iPhone's drop in popularity in trendy Hong Kong and Singapore is
mirrored in the upmarket malls of the region.
"IPhones are like Louis Vuitton handbags," said marketing manager Narisara
Konglua in Bangkok, who uses a Galaxy SIII. "It's become so commonplace to see
people with iPads and iPhones so you lose your cool edge having one."
In the Indonesian capital Jakarta, an assistant manager at Coca Cola's local
venture, Gatot Hadipratomo, agrees. The iPhone "used to be a cool gadget but
now more and more people use it."
There is another influence at play: hip Korea. Korean pop music, movies and TV
are hugely popular around the region and Samsung is riding that wave. And while
the impact is more visible in Hong Kong and Singapore, it also translates
directly to places like Thailand.
"Thais are not very brand-loyal," says Akkaradert Bumrungmuang, 24, a student
at Mahidol University in Bangkok. "That's why whatever is hot or the in-thing
to have is adopted quickly here. We follow Korea so whatever is fashionable in
Korea will be a big hit."
(Additional reporting by Lee Chyen Yee in Hong Kong; Khettiya Jittapong and Amy
Sawitta Lefevre in Bangkok, and Andjarsari Paramaditha in Jakarta; Editing by
Emily Kaiser)