Growing the high-tech Chinese presence in Southeast Asia

Chinese smartphone makers are still having to work hard at growing brand awareness in Southeast Asia, despite the huge strides having been made by the country's top producers elsewhere in the world.

According to a report released by The GfK Group, Germany's largest market research institute, nearly 120 million smartphones were sold across seven major Southeast Asian countries between September 2013 and August 2014, a 44 percent increase in volume compared with the same period a year ago.

The study also revealed there are a staggering 345 different Chinese-branded smartphones jostling for sales in the region, with strong sales particularly in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, where their respective proportions of consumer spend have reached more than 10 percent of the total market.