How did the Phoenicians differ from the inhabitants of western Asia known to you?

In the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Phoenicians lived mainly on the territory of modern Lebanon and partially on the modern coast of Syria. Their state and society differed from other countries in the region by the following features:

There was an alphabet, the rest used cuneiform.
They did not expand on land, like the rulers of Assyria, Babylon and the Hittite empire, because of their small territory and a sufficient amount of timber, they became a civilization of sailors and merchants.
The Phoenicians were the first to establish colonies, from Cyprus to southern Spain.