Huawei Honor ships to Asia in December, other markets to follow

Chinese manufacturer Huawei’s got big plans for the smartphone sector, and a lot of them hinge on the Honor. And why not: it’s a 4-inch Gingerbread phone with a zippy 1.4Ghz processor, and the last time we saw it, it was going for the equivalent of $300 without a contract. That’s about half the price of similar unlocked phones. In a press release, Huawei said that the phone will be launching next month in Russia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and China, with other markets following after.

In addition to Gingerbread, Huawei is including their differentiation skin, the “Huawei Android Platform 5.1″. Multiple colors will be available, including Glossy Black, Textured Black, Elegant White, Vibrant Yellow, Cherry Blossom Pink and Burgundy, though the company notes that not all colors may be available in all markets. Huawei is marketing this under their own name, unlike a lot of their products that eventually make it to the United States and other markets, like the “T-Mobile” Springboard.
Huawei is making some impressive in-roads into the smartphone market. According to the latest Gartner numbers, Huawei is in 9th place for total (smartphone and featurephone) shipments worldwide at 10.6 million phones shipped last quarter alone. With the smartphone market growing in leaps and bounds, Huawei is resting its hopes on Android, and they’re expanding their efforts to include more mid-range phones, and extending to the high end. Customers and competitors would do well to keep an eye on their progress.

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Android dominates in Southeast Asia as smartphone sales leap 1,000%

Android has charted an unprecedented 1,000 percent increase in sales over the last year in Southeast Asia as the Google owned operating system topped the region’s smartphone industry.
The figures, which come from a report from GfK Asia cited by ZDNet Asia, have seen Android rise to the top spot as the only OS to have seen “unwavering” growth in Southeast Asia during every month over the last year.
The explosive growth reported by GfK, whose data is compiled from tracked sales in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines, has taken Android’s sales beyond those of Nokia’s Symbian and RIM’s BlackBerry which it previously trailed as recently as the first quarter of this year.
The three OSes have a combined 90 percent market share, but Android on its own is thought to account for almost 40 percent of the region’s smartphone market, which GfK estimates to be worth $1.5 billion. The industry is booming in the region with overall smartphones sales up 120% in the last year after 4.7 devices were sold in the third quarter of 2011.
The growing range of Android’s devices, which increased this year from 50 to 170, and handset partners is a key source of its success according to GFK’s Benedict Hong:

With the ongoing engagement and partnership model between Google and major manufacturers, we can expect more innovative Android smartphones to swamp the marketplace; at least, until there is another major breakthrough that can shake the dynamics of the smartphone OS industry.

Despite its impressive growth, Android is still yet to break BlackBerry’s dominance in Indonesia’s lucrative market or topple Nokia who still reigns in Vietnam’s smartphone industry.
All signs point to Android’s continued dominance in Southeast Asia and the Asian continentas a whole where shipments of its devices have been tipped to triple this year, according to ABI Research.
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt is currently in Asia on a tour that has seen him meet with operators and mobile industry executives in Taiwan and South Korea. Mobile has figured prominently on Schmidt’s agenda as the company looks to develop Android’s position in key markets in the continent.

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More than 50% of smartphones sold in Asia run Android

Now Google and Samsung’s decision to move the Galaxy Nexus event to Hong Kong makes more sense. A new report from ABI research states that a whopping 52% of the smartphones in Asia are running Android. That’s a considerable lead on the United States, where Android currently commands 43% of the smartphone market.

The growth of Android in Asia is especially dramatic in Asia, where the operating system has gained 36% market share in just one year. Of course, much of Asia is still considered an emerging market, which is why only 27% of mobile phones sold there qualify as smartphones, as opposed to 40% in the U.S. We know that Android is big in China, and a big part of that is its open-source nature, allowing small and large manufacturers alike to create Android phones without paying a licensing fee. It probably doesn’t hurt that the two largest manufacturers of Android phones, Samsung and HTC, are based in South Korea and Taiwan, respectively.
In the next few years Asia will become an even more important part of the smartphone market, and the tech world in general. Analysts currently predict smartphone market share to double in the next five years, and if Android maintains its current success, it’ll be a pretty one-sided one at that. With Samsung, HTC and regional players like Pantech creating phones at every price level, it’ll be a bitter fight to see who can create and sell Android phones the fastest in the territory.Android is also making great strides in tablets and other form factors, such as the traditionally popular personal translator clamshell.

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