Sri Lanka’s phone market shifts to smart phone rapidly: Samsung Official

May 27, 2015 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s mobile phone market is seeing a rapid shift towards the smart phone segment, a Samsung official said.

“The total mobile market which comprise feature and smart phones will now experiencing a major shift from feature to smart in Sri Lanka.” Youngmin Shin, Managing Director, Samsung Sri Lanka said.

He was speaking at the launch of Samsung’s latest smart phone, “Samsung Z1″ in Colombo, Wednesday.

“At 10,990 rupees, it (The newly launched phone) makes it one of the most affordable yet best of smart phones for the Sri Lanka market,” Shin said.

“So we have high expectations that this phone will work well in Sri Lanka.”

The phone will be made available in Sri Lanka from 01 June and has already been launched in India and Bangladesh.

Sri Lanka’s mobile phone sales reached one million unities in the third quarter of 2014 while smart phone shipment up by 100 percent which accounts for 20 percent of the total sales, said CyberMedia Research, a Market Intelligence and Advisory firm in its report.

The report says the market grew 11 percent in unit shipment terms, quarter-on-quarter (3Q CY 2014 versus 2Q CY 2014), and 43 percent growth year on year.

Smart phones segment was up 100 percent to 0.2 million units while feature phones up by 33 percent to 0.8 million units year on year.

In the smartphone market segment, Samsung leaders with a 20.6 market share followed by E-Tel with 17.7 percent market share.

About 6.8 million people in the world use smart devices and about 20 percent of the population use smart devices in Sri Lanka data showed.