Thailand’s smartphone market is attracting increased investment from Chinese vendors, which are boosting ad spending and adding retail outlets as they to aspire to overtake South Korea’s Samsung as the country’s top smartphone brand.

Chinese telecoms equipment and handset vendor Huawei plans to triple its marketing budget in the country, with the aim of having a double-digit market share and being the number two vendor by the end of the year, the Bangkok Post reported.

Tossaporn Nisthanon, deputy country director of Huawei’s consumer business in Thailand, told the Post the company set a long-term goal of being Thailand’s largest smartphone maker by 2020.

China’s Oppo, the fourth largest smartphone maker globally, said it is increasing its marketing spending 20 per cent to more than THB1 billion ($28.5 million). The vendor’s handset sales in the country jumped 76 per cent last year as it moved to the number three position after overtaking Huawei.

Chanon Jirayuakul, sales director of Thai Oppo, told the Post it expects Chinese smartphone vendors to increasingly expand their market shares in Thailand, displacing Samsung over the next two to five years.

Meanwhile, Taiwan-headquartered Asus expects revenue to again grow 20 per cent this year, after a strong rebound in 2016. It plans to double the number of Asus brand shops in Thailand to ten this year, the Post reported. About 3,000 dealers and distributors sell Asus products in the country.

Asus increased its global marketing budget to 5 per cent of revenue from 3.5 per cent last year to build brand awareness.

Huawei also plans to boost its retail footprint in Thailand this year, with the number of sales outlets to increase from 7,000 to 8,000.

According to internal reports by Huawei and Oppo, Samsung had about a 40 per cent share of the Thai smartphone market at the end of 2016, followed by Apple, Oppo, Huawei and Asus, the Post reported.