Leading smartphone brands have tightened their grip of urban China market. In the three months ending October 2017, the top five brands – Huawei (including sub-brand Honor), Xiaomi, Apple, Vivo and OPPO – made up 91% of smartphone sales in urban China, compared to 79% a year earlier, according to the latest smartphone OS data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

China, a market once overrun with new challengers, is maturing.

“Chinese challenger brands like Meizu, LeTV, Coolpad, ZTE, and Lenovo were once on the same trajectory as like of Xiaomi, but any momentum they once had has abruptly stopped, with many struggling to get past a 1% share,” said Dominic Sunnebo, Global Business Unit Director for Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. “Samsung’s performance in China continues to deteriorate, with its share now down to just 2.2% of that market.”

Kantar Worldpanel ComTech carries out monthly panel surveys among Chinese urban mobile phone users to monitor the market share changes of various brands. In China, the panel size is 22,000. Panellists were recruited from tier-1 to 5 cities and each year more than 260,000 surveys were conducted. The nature of the research methodology means it can cover the influence of smartphones sold in other countries ended up in China and avoid the confusion caused by unsold phones stocked at warehouses of distributors.

Digging deeper into the data, we can see that Xiaomi and Honor both realized significant growth in August – October period. Xiaomi’s sales market share jumped to 20.1%, 1 percentage point higher than in the May – July circle. However, due to its previously lacklustre performance, currently only 13.8% of all urban smartphone users are using Xiaomi, 2.1 percentage points lower than a year ago.

Honor’s share was 11.7% in August – October, also 1 percentage point higher than in May – July circle. Among all urban smartphone users, 9.8% are using Honor, 1.3 percentage points higher than a year ago.

Among the top 20 best-selling models during August – October period, eight are from Xiaomi or Honor.

Even though “price” is the biggest advantage of both brands when people making their purchasing decision, Xiaomi and Honor have both managed to achieve higher selling prices. Between August and October, the average selling price of Xiaomi models is 1,640.32 yuan, 321.96 yuan higher than a year ago; that of Honor phones is 2,136.66 yuan, 506.53 yuan higher than a year ago.

It’s a bittersweet period for Apple. Urban China remained a bright spot for Apple, with its share edging up 0.5 percentage point in the latest three months to reach 17.4%.

But globally, iOS share fell in key markets, making clear the impact of the flagship iPhone X not being available to buy in the month of October.

Dominic said: “It was somewhat inevitable that Apple would see volume share fall once we had a full comparative month of sales taking into account the non-flagship iPhone 8 vs. the flagship iPhone 7 from 2016. This decrease is significant and puts pressure on the iPhone X to perform.

“Considering the complete overhaul that the iPhone X offers, consumers may be postponing their purchase decisions until they can test the iPhone X and decide whether the higher price, compared to the iPhone 8, is worth the premium to them,” he said.

He added: “As of October 2017, 35.3% of Apple’s installed base customers across Europe and the United States had owned their iPhones for more than two years – up from 30.1% a year earlier and signifying considerable pent-up demand within Apple’s base. In pure value terms, it is likely the iPhone X average selling price will more than make up for a dip in sales of older iPhone models.”

China smartphone market in Q3 2017; 4 out of 10 using Huawei or iPhone

The top three smartphone brands in September 2016 are Huawei (22%), Vivo (15%), and Oppo (13%) according to Dixintong, China’s largest mobile phone retailer.

Top 20 Smartphone Models in Sep 2016

1. Oppo R9M
2. Huawei Maimang5
3. Vivo X7
4. Oppo A59m
5. Huawei P9
6. Huawei G9
7. Vivo V3MA
8. Vivo X7Plus
9. Huawei P9 Plus
10. Honor8
11. ZTE A510
12. Huawei Mate8
13. Huawei Changxiang5
14. Xiaomi Redmi Note4
15. Moto Z Play
16. Huawei Changxiang 5S
17. Vivo X7 Plus
18. Honor Changwan5
19. Oppo A37M
20. Coolpad 5270

25% of China smartphone users use the iOS operating system in 2016, a slight growth compared to the past year which was 21%.

Although majority of China smartphone users use Android phones, 78% iOS users are loyal to their operating system and only 9% iOS users will select an Android smartphone as their next smartphone. As for Android users, 59% of them will continue using Android phones, which has increased 33% compared to 2015.

Apple iPhone is the most popular brand in China while Huawei becomes the most frequently used Android brand (17%), followed by Xiaomi (13%) and Samsung (8%).

29% users use new iPhone models in 2015 and 28% in 2014 after a 7-months release.

As for different iPhone models, 21% of users use iPhone 5s in 2015, followed by iPhone 4s (19%) and iPhone 6 (15%); in 2016, 21% of users use iPhone 6, followed by iPhone 6s (16%) as well as iPhone 5s (16%).

The most popular smartphone brands in China in 2016 are Apple (25%) and Huawei (17%). Huawei has increased seven percentage points while Apple has decreased 4. Samsung’s share dropped from 17% in 2015 to 8% in 2016.

35% of Chinese users want to buy an iPhone as their next smartphone while 19% of them want to buy an Huawei smartphone.

In terms of different smartphone users, most of Chinese iPhone users still plan to buy an iPhone in the future (77%), Huawei as the second option.

59% Huawei users show loyalty to their current brand, but 17% of them tend to switch to iPhone.

45% Xiaomi users will continue using Xiaomi smartphones; 21% will turn to iPhone and 12% to Huawei.

56% iPhone users are female while 59% Huawei users are male.

The 80s and 90s are drivers of the smartphone market; 37% of iPhone users are the 90s and 36% are the 80s; Huawei users are mainly the 70s (25%), the 80s (30%), and the 90s (25%).

iPhone users in tier 1 and tier 2 cities are more than Huawei users; but, in tier 3, tier 4 and below, Huawei users are more than iPhone users.

Near half of iPhone (42%) and Huawei (44%) users have the income of roughly 2,000 to 5,000 yuan a month.

28% iPhone users are white-collars and 21% are students. Both white-collar employees and students account for 20% of Huawei users.

Top 10 Android brands in 2016 are Huawei, Xiaomi, Samsung, Oppo, Vivo, Meizu, Lenovo, Coolpad, Le smartphone, and Gionee.

In tier 4 and below, Oppo users account for 45% and Vivo 47%.

The 90s are the major users of Oppo and Vivo; 46% of the respondent 90s are Oppo users and 59% Vivo users.

23% Chinese users plan to buy an Oppo smartphone as their next Android smartphone brand, followed by Xiaomi (19%) and Huawei (12%).

58% Oppo users and 56% Vivo users are female, which show that Oppo and Vivo smartphones are more popular for females.

47% students use Vivo and 45% use Oppo.

Xiaomi was the top smartphone vendor in China by shipments volume in both Q4 2014 and 2014 according to IDC.

Xiaomi beat last year’s top smartphone vendor Samsung with 12.5% market share by total shipments and 150% YoY unit growth in 2014. Lenovo, Huawei and Coolpad ranked from the third to the fifth after Xiaomi and Samsung.

The total smartphone shipments in China reached 420.7 million in 2014 according to IDC.

Apple rose to the second position in Q4 2014 as its iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models were only launched in China in the last quarter of the year.

Huawei was ranked third in terms of smartphone shipments as it had a wide range of models in the low-end and mid-range segment that did well in Q4 2014. It plans to sell 100 million smartphones in 2015.

Lenovo finished off as the fourth with its strong focus on phones worth lower than US$150 while Samsung dropped to the fifth.

IDC expects the YoY growth for the smartphone market in China to hit a close to 10% in 2015. Credit Suisse estimates that the smartphone shipment volume in 2015 will be 498 million in China, however, the growth rate compared with 2014, will slow down.

Global smartphone shipments totaled 1.167 billion units in 2014, a YoY increase of 25.9%, with combined shipments of Chinese brands reaching 453.4 million units, 39% of the global shipments and representing six of the top ten smartphone brands worldwide according to TrendForce.

Read more: China Mobile Marketing Market 2014-2017

Global smartphone shipments totaled 1.167 billion units in 2014, a YoY increase of 25.9%, with combined shipments of Chinese brands reaching 453.4 million units, 39% of the global shipments and representing six of the top ten smartphone brands worldwide according to TrendForce.

Samsung (326.4 million units) and Apple (191.3 million units, up 24.5%) shipments together accounted for 518 million units, over 44% of global shipments.

With the completed acquisition of Motorola from Google in Q4 2014, Lenovo’s total shipments in 2014 exceeded 90 million units and its annual growth surpassed 100%. It ranked first place among Chinese smartphone vendors and third worldwide with its 7.9% global market share.

With approximately 70 million units shipped and an annual growth around 70%, Huawei was ranked fifth in 2014 worldwide smartphone shipments.

Xiaomi, ranked by BCG as the most innovative Chinese company, annual shipment growth exceeded 200% with 60 million units shipped in 2014, ranked sixth worldwide in 2014.

Also read: The Art of Social E-Commerce That Xiaomi Taught Us

Read more: https://www.chinainternetwatch.com/?s=xiaomi#ixzz3PS8kmyKd