Apple and Samsung may be dominating the global smartphone market, but it seems that China is a different ball game for the two OEMs.
According to a new report from the International Data Corporation (IDC), Samsung and Apple are not among the top three smartphone vendors in the country.
Beating the two companies to the spot are local vendors Huawei and Oppo. China it seems prefers low-cost phones such as those from Oppo and Huawei, judging by the latest IDC Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report.
The Findings Of The Report
The IDC report reveals that the Chinese smartphone market experienced a year-over-year growth of 19 percent in Q4 2016, as well a 17 percent quarter-on-quarter growth in the same period.
The data shows that the smarthphone market experienced a growth of 9 percent with major Chinese OEMs accounting for a bigger chunk of the mobile phone market in the country.
The top five vendors in terms of year-over-year growth in Q4 2016 were namely Oppo, Huawei, Vivo, Apple and Xiaomi in this order.
Apple was the only non-Chinese smartphone vendor on the list. In 2015, the same four Chinese OEMs were in the top five as well. The share for the four Chinese vendors has grown from 46 percent in 2015 to 57 percent in 2016.
This growth evidences the fact that consumers in China are gravitating towards products made in their country, which is likely because of the enhanced features of the product coupled with improved marketing.
"Increased dependence on mobile apps has led to consumers to seek phone upgrades, thus helping drive the large growth in 2016Q4. In lower tiered cities, there was a similar demand by consumers, which OPPO and vivo met by aggressively pushing mid-range smart phones in these cities," noted Tay Xiaohan, Senior Market Analyst with IDC.
Why Apple And Samsung Faltered
Even though Apple makes it to the top 5, the IDC data reveals that the company experiences its first-ever year-over-year downfall in the Chinese smartphone space. The iPhone 7's black variants caught consumer fancy, but compared to older Apple smartphones, this iteration did not generate as much frenzy or excitement in China.
Samsung does not even make it to the top five vendor list and its market share in China was not revealed by the IDC report. A possibility exists that Samsung was not able to generate much revenue in China possibly because of its Galaxy Note 7 fiasco. Consumers in the country may have lost faith in the OEM post the battery exploding problem.
Silver Lining For Apple
However, things do not seem bleak for Apple as IDC analysts are of the opinion that vendors like Oppo, Huawei, Vivo and Xiaomi have not eaten into the company's market share.
Apple accounted for 9.6 percent market share in Q4 2016 in the country per the report, which was better than the 8.9 percent share boasted by Xiaomi.
The analysts believe that consumers are waiting for the release of the iPhone 8, which is expected to launch sometime this year.
The iPhone 8 is anticipated to bring several new features users' way and it will also be the tenth-anniversary handset. IDC expects that this version may be instrumental in converting some top-end Android smartphone users to the Apple handset.
Photo: Kārlis Dambrāns | Flickr
