China accounts for 70% of Top Smartphone Vendors Worldwide
Chinese smartphone brands are dominating the global market backed by factors like competitive prices alongside a readily available market in the developing world.
Data acquired by Finbold indicates that China hosts about 70% of the top ten smartphone vendors globally as of 2020. Despite the Chinese dominance, South Korea’s Samsung has the largest market share at an estimated 19.2%. Apple is the only U.S. vendor on the list controlling a share of about 15.1% backed by its luxury products’ brand. Huawei ranks third with an estimated market share of 14.1%. Cumulatively, the top three vendors account for almost half of the global smartphone market at 48.4%.
Notably, South Korea’s second vendor on the list, LG, ranks ninth with a market share of 1.9%. The manufacturer has since announced an end to its smartphone manufacturing business amid stiff dominance by Samsung and Apple.
Why China has a grip on the global smartphone market share
China is known to harness engineering expertise while adopting an aggressive approach to sales and supply chain. Most Chinese manufacturers have a reputation for developing medium to high-end devices and offer many flagship products catering to a broad audience. Additionally, most Chinese products have a high-cost performance ratio in return, easily penetrating price-sensitive markets like India and Africa.
In general, Chinese manufacturers’ great advantage has been price. With low-priced competitors from China, manufacturers like Samsung have also resorted to offering smartphones across all price ranges.
The dominance also reflects China’s rising domestic competitiveness in the telecoms sector. Smartphone vendors operate in a crowded, fragmented, and fiercely competitive local market. Competitors usually seek to remain on top by undercutting each other with price and design.
Most Chinese manufacturers usually market their products through aggressive promotions, advanced designs, and features. Furthermore, they offer a wide range of models to entice both younger and affluent buyers. The model is replicated domestically and abroad.
On the other hand, China’s local competition has seen top vendors take the lead in exploring other technologies like expansion into the 5G portfolio. Our previous research indicates that Huawei leads in active 5G-ready deviceswith a share of 26.9% globally as of Q4 2020. Samsung follows at 25.1%, while Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) accounts for a share of 19.5%. Huawei’s dominance is backed by China’s position as a 5G hub alongside an extensive domestic market.
Worth mentioning is that manufacturers who take the lead in leveraging the 5G technology might flip the scale in terms of the smartphone vendors’ market share. Interestingly, while vendors like Huawei were already rolling out deliveries of 5G smartphones, competitors like Apple were still carrying out research and testing of the technology.
Apple ranks top by maintaining luxury brand status
As other vendors release products targeting all consumers, Apple still ranks second by holding onto its luxury smartphone image. The U.S.-based firm boasts of a robust and loyal customer base, with China accounting for a significant share. Following the release of 5G-enabled iPhones, Apple stands a substantial chance of eating into the Samsung and Huawei market share.
It is essential to mention that the Chinese population offers a lucrative opportunity for foreign manufacturers who have been making attempts to enter and dominate the market. However, for vendors like Samsung and Apple, penetrating the Chinese market comes with a host of challenges. Most consumers in China tend to favor local brands alongside the Chinese-language software that integrates with domestic social networks.
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Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter, creator of the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website— TheAppWhisperer.com— TheAppWhisperer platform has been a pivotal cyberspace for mobile artists of all abilities to learn about, to explore, to celebrate and to share mobile artworks. Joanne’s compassion, inclusivity, and humility are hallmarks in all that she does, and is particularly evident in the platform she has built. In her words, “We all have the potential to remove ourselves from the centre of any circle and to expand a sphere of compassion outward; to include everyone interested in mobile art, ensuring every artist is within reach”, she has said. Promotion of mobile artists and the art form as a primary medium in today’s art world, has become her life’s focus. She has presented lectures bolstering mobile artists and their art from as far away as the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea to closer to her home in the UK at Focus on Imaging. Her experience as a jurist for mobile art competitions includes: Portugal, Canada, US, S Korea, UK and Italy. And her travels pioneering the breadth of mobile art includes key events in: Frankfurt, Naples, Amalfi Coast, Paris, Brazil, London. Pioneering the world’s first mobile art online gallery - TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com has extended her reach even further, shipping from London, UK to clients in the US, Europe and The Far East to a global group of collectors looking for exclusive art to hang in their homes and offices. The online gallery specialises in prints for discerning collectors of unique, previously unseen signed limited edition art. Her journey towards becoming The App Whisperer, includes (but is not limited to) working for a paparazzi photo agency for several years and as a deputy editor for a photo print magazine. Her own freelance photographic journalistic work is also widely acclaimed. She has been published extensively both within the UK and the US in national and international titles. These include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Popular Photography & Imaging, dpreview, NikonPro, Which? and more recently with the BBC as a Contributor, Columnist at Vogue Italia and Contributing Editor at LensCulture. Her professional photography has also been widely exhibited throughout Europe, including Italy, Portugal and the UK. She is currently writing several books, all related to mobile art and is always open to requests for new commissions for either writing or photography projects or a combination of both. Please contact her at: [email protected]
