Studies and statistics on the market shares of smartphone brands are usually dealing with data on shipments, which do not even show sales to real consumers, but only orders by large retailers. In many cases, such data refer to sales that happen in a different year, which can make shipment-based estimates very misleading.
Real statistics on what smartphones are used by people are a rare commodity, but insights into Casino Days online casino’s internal data on devices shed light on the brand and model preferences of real money gamers in the region of South Asia.
Strikingly, speaking about devices used to play online casino games in the region means speaking about smartphone devices only. Computers (2.9%) and tablet devices (0.5%) are down to negligible shares that are not worth analyzing in further detail.
Xiaomi Leads the South Asian Market, Closely Followed by Vivo
The internal Casino Days data on smartphone usage places Chinese brand Xiaomi in the lead with a share of 21.9%, closely followed by Vivo with 20.79%. Devices by South Korean Samsung round up the Top 3 with 18.1%.
iPhones are positioned way down in seventh place with a tiny share of 2.29%, way behind devices by Realme (11.43%), Oppo (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
This is a very different arrangement of the leaders from the one defined by global shipments. Statista data for Q1 of the present 2023 bring Samsung to the front with 20.5%, and the second place is reserved for iPhones with 20.5% – a ten times bigger share than the footprint Cupertino, California-based Apple holds in the region.
The leader among South Asian real money gamers Xiaomi is only third in global shipments with a share of 11.4%, followed by Oppo (10.2%) and Vivo (7.6%).
Exploring the Android Dominance in South Asia
Android is the most common operating system (OS) worldwide with a share of 67.56% as of May 2023, challenged to an extent only by iOS with its global footprint of 31.44%. Still, this is far from the dominance exerted by Android on the regional level among the Casino Days player sample.
The open-source status of the Android OS, as opposed to the copyrighted iOS, is discussed by the Casino Days market analysts as the most important factor that has contributed to the operating system’s prevalence.
Open source is much more enabling to app developers, providing for an easier review and release process. This has led to a great availability of apps for Android devices, which is not the case with iPhones.
As a result, the majority of tech reviews and influencer posts revolve around Android smartphones, adding more fuel to the fire.
Government incentives to manufacture locally in countries like India have helped lower the costs of a lot of brands that operate on Android. These brands are cheaper than premium-status iPhones anyway, so such additional price adjustments can only help.
“Another reason for Android being the prime choice of our Asian players is the integration of Google Pay. While Google Pay can be used on iOS devices, it comes similarly pre-installed on most Android phones as Apple Pay is pre-installed on iOS devices,” the researchers point out.
“And while Apple Pay and Google Pay work in the same way, their penetration within Asian countries is vastly different, with Google Pay being far more available than its iOS counterpart,” they conclude.