Competitive pricing of locally-made mobile phones has sent sales skyward, with Benq (
"Based on our handset-sales estimate for the first half of this year, four out of the top 10 mobile phones are local brands, while last year that number was zero," said Hsu Wei-heng (許維恆), a deputy manager at online mobile phone retailer Mobihome Co (摩比家).
Making the cut into the top 10 were Inventec Co's (英業達) OKWAP i108, OKWAP i66, Quanta Inc's (廣達) Q285 and Benq's S630i.
Following a massive advertising campaign, June sales of Benq handsets hit number one at Mobihome, surpassing other domestic and international brand mobile phones.
Meanwhile, over at Synnex Corp (聯強國際), the top brick and mortar seller of handsets, public acceptance of local brands is growing.
"Over the last five years, the best selling mobile phones were international brands, while last month, for the first time, Benq's S630i became one of our 10 best selling handsets," said Tu Wei-feng (涂偉豐), a product manager at Synnex. With 21 retail stores around Taiwan, the company shipped out about 1.2 million handset units during the first half of this year, accounting for some 42 percent of total market sales, Tu said.
Nokia and Motorola are still the most popular brands at Synnex.
Price, according to Mobihome's Hsu, is the key to sales of local brand mobile phone brands, which are NT$2,000 to NT$3,000 cheaper than foreign brands. And for teens who shop online, price is very important.
International-brand handset manufacturers spend big bucks on marketing and branding, and therefore there is no room for them to cut prices, he said.
"With Taiwan producing more than 50 percent of the world's cellphones, manufacturing ability is quite mature, but brand attractiveness has been relatively low," he added.
However, several local companies, such as Benq and OKWAP, began to invest more on design and marketing, and brand awareness has grown steadily.
"That's why these companies' handset market share is expanding," Hsu said.
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