Filipinos’ insatiability on techno gadgets shows in sales of mobile phones, gadgets

DAVAO CITY – The consistently increasing sales of mobile phones and other handy entertainment and multi-media gadgets show the insatiable propensity of Filipinos to spend on technology, a mobile phone maker executive said on Friday.

Patrick Larica, Sony Ericsson marketing manager, said that sales of mobile phones alone have shown a consistent climb through the years for all phone-makers.

“Compared to five years ago? It’s already way far from the total number of units sold,” he told reporters after launching at SM Davao its donation program for mobile education program of the United Nations Children Fund (Unicef).

Industry-wide, studies show that sales reached between 400,000 to as many as 500,000 units per month across the country, he said.

“There’s not even a specific market segment that we can say are the heavy spender. They have become younger, and many older persons are acquiring phones too,” he said.

He said the cheaper mobile phones, those with fewer multi-media features, were the fast-selling units. “It’s the units in the P4,000 or P5,000 price range,” he said, saying that certain segments, like the older persons, and those with busy lifestyles, “would not need those other media features”.

“But this still mainly reflect the status of our economy,” he said.

Production of high-end units was often targeted for a specific market segment or clientele, he said, though market could sustain the fast introduction of new models and innovation of previous versions.

In the case of Sony Ericsson, the introduction of its three high-end phones in October this year came only 12 months after its introduction of the Xperia phone, its banner phone last year. “In fact, we have a new Xperia coming up in December.”

The new phones it introducerd were: the Satio, whose powerful camera was complemented with a high-definition 3.5-inch widespread screen format; the Aino, with capabilities to access applications from the personal computer wirelss through wi-fi; and the Kita, which the company said debutted in the mobile phones the latest gesture gaming, where the player gets into the middle of the game by making the moves in front of the screen.

The Satio is currently priced P32,600, the Aino, P25,000 and the Kita, at P13,800.

Larica said that the “The market should be fairly active, especially that we are coming into the retail season,” he said.

Globally, he said, “[economic] signs are improving and in the Philippines, signs also indicate that the economy is picking up”.

“It’s exciting,” he said.