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ocal smartphone brands are gaining traction with Indonesia'€™s consumers, with local phone manufacturers boosting their production amid growing demand.

Polytron and Evercoss are two local brands that claim to be ready to meet growing demand for local brand enthusiasts in the country.

PT Hartono Istana Teknologi, which manufactures Polytron branded-electronic devices, will open a new phone production facility this year to increase its output, according to the company'€™s public relations and marketing event manager Santo Kadarusman.

'€œHaving seen the trend last year, we will add a new production facility in July this year,'€ he told The Jakarta Post.

The new production facility in Kudus, Central Java, will have a maximum output capacity of 100,000 phones a month, the same as the capacity of each of the company'€™s existing two production facilities.

However, the firm'€™s production is currently only 30 percent of its maximum capacity.

Polytron significantly increased production to 720,000 units last year from its existing two facilities to meet growing demand from consumers, according to Santo.

'€œWith the new production facility, we will have a total production capacity of 3.6 million units a year, of which 70 percent will be smartphones,'€ he said, adding that the company was ready to reach full capacity to anticipate growing demand from consumers.

The firm'€™s phone production was insignificant during 2011 to 2013 when it was still reviewing the market.

Local smartphones make up 37 percent of overall smartphone sales in Southeast Asia'€™s largest economy, according to research firm Frost & Sullivan.

PT Aries Indo Global, Evercoss brand holder, is also ready to boost production to its maximum capacity of between 800,000 and 1 million units a year, said the company'€™s director Edward Sofananda.

'€œWe have seen good demand growth each month and we have increased our production over time,'€ he said, refusing to disclose how many smartphones his firm had sold last year.

Evercoss had faced difficult times in its early operations over the last 2.5 years, but demand had grown recently, Edward added.

'€œI think the trend will stay the same in the future and [some] premium segment consumers will likely move to our products,'€ he told the Post.

Frost & Sullivan associate director for ICT consulting in the Asia Pacific, Spike Choo, said the smartphone market segment in the country would become two tiered, namely premium and budget phones.

Budget smartphone sales are on the rise, with the research firm estimating the number at around 20 million units last year.

With a 250 million population and one person owning at least one cell phone in the country, smartphones are gaining traction, with shipments forecast to grow 20 percent to 30 million units this year, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).

The IDC has estimated that total smartphone shipments to the country reached 25 million units last year, with Android-based phones gaining 95 percent of market share.