Southeast Asia’s smartphone market is booming so far this year as China remains sluggish, research says
People using their mobile phones on July 17, 2016 in Surakarta, Indonesia.
Solo Imaji | Barcroft Media | Getty Images
Smartphone shipments in Southeast Asia continued a resurgence at the start of 2024, contrasting to a lull in other regions, as the promising market for mobile makers continues to attract more brands and investment.
The top five markets in the region saw 7.26 million smartphone units shipped, marking a significant 20% increase from the same period last year, according to research from technology market analyst firm Canalys published Wednesday.
The results continue a market rebound that began in the fourth quarter of 2023 when Southeast Asia phone shipments increased year-over-year for the first quarter in almost two years amid a broader post-pandemic industry recovery.
According to Canalys analyst Le Xuan Chiew, stabilizing inflationary pressures buoyed by government support and momentum from year-end 2023 sales events in the region have seen consumer sentiment and expenditure rebound.
“To capitalize on this market resurgence, smartphone manufacturers, which adopted conservative strategies in the last six months, are now deploying aggressive tactics to gain market dominance,” he said in the release, noting trends such as affordable 5G, AI integration, ecosystem development, and channel optimization.
In January, Samsung regained its top market share spot in the region thanks to the successful launch of its premium S24 series, which offered increased battery life and new AI capabilities.
But, Chinese competitors are focusing more on the market, gaining ground and offering new phone models at competitive prices. Xiaomi, the second largest phone brand by shipments in January for that region, saw year-on-year growth of 128%, while Transsion, a relative newcomer to the market, saw growth of 190%.
“The region’s increasing disposable income from an expanding middle-class and young population entering the workforce are strong reasons to expect increased investments,” said Cheiw.
The strong smartphone shipments in Southeast Asia contrasted with China, the largest smartphone market globally, which saw smartphone sales fall 7% in the first six weeks of 2024 year-over-year, according to a Tuesday report from Counterpoint Research.
While the decline in sales in China was magnified by unusually high sales at the start of 2023, other factors have kept the market down, senior analyst Ivan Lam said in the report.
“Consumer confidence will need to rise to stabilize the market, but it is a tough call right now with everything that is happening, especially in the real estate sector,” he said.
One casualty has been Apple, whose smartphone shipments in China declined 24% in the first six weeks of the year, according to the research. This decline resulted, in part, from the revival of local competitor Huawei, but also abnormally high shipments by Apple at the start of 2023 that resulted from earlier production delays.
However, as growth in smartphone markets like China and the U.S. slow, brands that sell premium phones like Apple and Huawei are increasingly looking to emerging markets like Southeast Asia, which are poised for growth.
According to data from Canalys, Southeast Asia’s phone market is forecasted to grow 7% year-over-year in 2024, a much faster rate than that of the rest of the world, which is at 3%. Meanwhile, China is predicted to grow by 1%, and North America’s market is predicted to stay flat.
According to reporting from Bloomberg, Apple’s first retail location in Malaysia is already in the works. Meanwhile, Huawei has been strengthening ties with Southeast Asian partners such as the Indonesian telecommunications company Telkomsel.
In the Canalys report, Indonesia remained the largest Southeast Asian smartphone market, making up 38% of shipments in January. The second largest market, the Philippines, showed the most robust growth with shipments up 77% in January compared to last year.
The next largest markets were Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia, in that order. Vietnam was the only country to experience a year-on-year shipment decline, dropping 2%.
Chief executive officer of Google Sundar Pichai.
Marek Antoni Iwanczuk | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Google on Friday made the latest a splash in the AI talent wars, announcing an agreement to bring in Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf.
As part of the deal, Google will also hire other senior Windsurf research and development employees. Google is not investing in Windsurf, but the search giant will take a nonexclusive license to certain Windsurf technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Windsurf remains free to license its technology to others.
“We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an email. “We’re excited to continue bringing the benefits of Gemini to software developers everywhere.”
The deal between Google and Windsurf comes after the AI coding startup had been in talks with OpenAI for a $3 billion acquisition deal, CNBC reported in April. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move ratchets up the talent war in AI particularly among prominent companies. Meta has made lucrative job offers to several employees at OpenAI in recent weeks. Most notably, the Facebook parent added Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang to lead its AI strategy as part of a $14.3 billion investment into his startup.
Douglas Chen, another Windsurf co-founder, will be among those joining Google in the deal, Jeff Wang, the startup’s new interim CEO and its head of business for the past two years, wrote in a post on X.
“Most of Windsurf’s world-class team will continue to build the Windsurf product with the goal of maximizing its impact in the enterprise,” Wang wrote.
Windsurf has become more popular this year as an option for so-called vibe coding, which is the process of using new age AI tools to write code. Developers and non-developers have embraced the concept, leading to more revenue for Windsurf and competitors, such as Cursor, which OpenAI also looked at buying. All the interest has led investors to assign higher valuations to the startups.
This isn’t the first time Google has hired select people out of a startup. It did the same with Character.AI last summer. Amazon and Microsoft have also absorbed AI talent in this fashion, with the Adept and Inflection deals, respectively.
Microsoft is pushing an agent mode in its Visual Studio Code editor for vibe coding. In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said AI is composing as much of 30% of his company’s code.
The Verge reported the Google-Windsurf deal earlier on Friday.
Technology
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang sells more than $36 million in stock, catches Warren Buffett in net worth
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, holds a motherboard as he speaks during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 11, 2025.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unloaded roughly $36.4 million worth of stock in the leading artificial intelligence chipmaker, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
The sale, which totals 225,000 shares, comes as part of Huang’s previously adopted plan in March to unload up to 6 million shares of Nvidia through the end of the year. He sold his first batch of stock from the agreement in June, equaling about $15 million.
Last year, the tech executive sold about $700 million worth of shares as part of a prearranged plan. Nvidia stock climbed about 1% Friday.
Huang’s net worth has skyrocketed as investors bet on Nvidia’s AI dominance and graphics processing units powering large language models.
The 62-year-old’s wealth has grown by more than a quarter, or about $29 billion, since the start of 2025 alone, based on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. His net worth last stood at $143 billion in the index, putting him neck-and-neck with Berkshire Hathaway‘s Warren Buffett at $144 billion.
Shortly after the market opened Friday, Fortune‘s analysis of net worth had Huang ahead of Buffett, with the Nvidia CEO at $143.7 billion and the Oracle of Omaha at $142.1 billion.
The company has also achieved its own notable milestones this year, as it prospers off the AI boom.
On Wednesday, the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker became the first company to top a $4 trillion market capitalization, beating out both Microsoft and Apple. The chipmaker closed above that milestone Thursday as CNBC reported that the technology titan met with President Donald Trump.
Brooke Seawell, venture partner at New Enterprise Associates, sold about $24 million worth of Nvidia shares, according to an SEC filing. Seawell has been on the company’s board since 1997, according to the company.
Huang still holds more than 858 million shares of Nvidia, both directly and indirectly, in different partnerships and trusts.
WATCH: Nvidia hits $4 trillion in market cap milestone despite curbs on chip exports
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