China, the largest smarphone market of the world, has shown once again that local smartphone brands can dominate global giants like Samsung and Apple. Despite regaining the spot in global smartphone sales, Apple is not the one to rule the Chinese market. Neither is Samsung.
Rather these are the relatively smaller local brands that are shredding off the big names in China. Brands like Oppo, Huawei and Vivo have snatched the global share and crushed Apple and Samsung in the biggest smarphone market of the world.
Since the time Xiaomi emerged in the scene in 2011 Apple and Samsung have been surrendering grounds in China to the local manufacturers. But Xiaomi itself went down to the fifth position in 2016, as Oppo, Huawei Technologies and Vivo Smartphones were the main three vendors respectively, representing 48 percent of shipments. Apple stood at number four, while Samsung couldn't even get a place in top-five, said the IDC statement released this week.
These local smartphone vendrors basically cater to the Chinese users who are looking for Apple-like features in a cheaper price band. The shipments of iPhone plunged 23.2 percent in 2016, contracting Apple's piece of the overall market share to only 9.6 percent, the least in around two years.
Apple may bring back ground with the upcoming iPhone later this year, the tenth edition of the gadget that heralded the modern Smartphone industry. However, local brands are here to stay. Oppo, Huawei, and Vivo make use of their store networks strength and enhanced customer service and a push to open their own retail locations. Chinese smartphone creators have moved far from budget devices.
Oppo took the lead last year, as the company saw an incredible growth in business as the number of smartphones sold rose from 35 million in 2015 to 78.4 million in 2016.Vivo and Huawei also experienced multiplied business last year. Overall, a total of 467.3 million units of Smartphone's were moved in China last year up 8.7 percent from 2015, estimated IDC.
