2018 was an eventful year

This year was an eventful year for the local mobile scene. There were a few high-profile arrivals and low-key brand departures in the country. While many people already know about the triumphant entry and return of three of the brands on this list, not many know about the circumstances surrounding the silence of the other two brands in this list.

1) Xiaomi

Xiaomi’s return to the Philippines was a triumphant one this year, as the brand picked up where it left off when it unceremoniously quit the local market back in 2016. Armed with a new focus, an appreciation of local dynamics and a new strategy that involved physical, retail locations, Xiaomi has been making big waves in the local scene, thanks to their extremely affordable offerings.

2) Honor

Honor is another brand that returned to the Philippines this year after it made a low key exit 2 years ago. Like Xiaomi, the Huawei sub-brand now has a renewed focus and is no longer constrained by concerns of cannibalizing sales of its mother brand, as evidenced by many of its offerings that challenge many of Huawei’s key models.

3) Realme

Former OPPO sub-brand and now independent Realme is the youngest and latest brand to enter the Philippines. The company formally established local operations around a month ago, and only started offering their first phone, the C1, a few days ago in a number of online flash sales. Just like the first two entries in this list, Realme offers a bunch of really high-spec models with prices that are difficult to ignore.

4) HTC

Brands typically do not make announcements that they are shuttering operations in countries they operate in. It’s understandable considering it’s an admission of failure, of sorts, especially in today’s hypercompetitive environment. Instead, they opt to simply fade away, pulling out silently in case the market is ready for them to return again (see: Xiaomi).

That seems to be the case with HTC. We thought HTC officially called it quits a few years ago in the Philippines, but we were pleasantly surprised when a local exec of the Taiwanese brand contacted us last year to review their latest flagship. A local launch followed, along with the promise of availability for future models at the end of 2017.

A few months later, we couldn’t get a hold of said local exec. The local Facebook page of the company stopped posting updates last March, and no other HTC phones were announced for sale locally through the “official” HTC seller in Lazada.

5) Motorola

Many people have wondered what happened to Lenovo-owned Motorola, who has, for all intents and purposes, disappeared from our radar. There’s been no update from their official Facebook account since March, and the last we heard anything from them was last August.

Well, according to our sources, the company has entered major restructuring, removing many of its local PH staff, along with the people handling the local Facebook account. There are still Motorola phones being sold, but until the company finishes what they need to do, don’t expect any substantial marketing push for their latest products any time soon.