“Smartphone Typhoon” from China
The growth of Chinese smartphone makers is substantial, even if it has been expected. Based on robust beneficial position in their home-ground, their growth looks as if they could gobble up the global market. As a result, sales of their competitors are also on a steep decline.
According to US-based market researcher Strategy Analytics on November 17, Samsung Electronics and Apple kept their positions as #1 and #2 in the global smartphone market in Q3 this year by selling 88.4 million units (35% share of the global market) and 33.8 million (13.4%), respectively.
What’s standing out is the “uprising” of Chinese smartphone makers. The Chinese Huawei ranked third by selling 12.7 million units (5%) and Lenovo made fourth with 12.2 million (4.7%), which pulled down the ranking of South Korea’s second-largest smartphone maker LG Electronics, which sold 12 million units (4.7%), to fifth from the third in the previous quarter.
Other Chinese smartphone makers such as ZTE (9 million, 3.6%) and Coolpad (8.6 million, 3.4%) were included on the list of the world’s top 10 vendors in Q3, reflecting the rising presence of China's companies in the global market.
The combined market share of five Chinese firms – Huawei, Lenovo, ZTE, Coolpad and Xiaomi Tech – reached 18.9 percent in the cited quarter.
Market watchers said the Chinese government will provide a variety of support measures such as funding for R&D, since management strategies of the Chinese companies that try to enter into the global market accord with the policy directions of the Chinese government.
“Such performances of Chinese smartphone makers come from the ‘two-horse carriage’ of cost competitiveness based on a strongly-connected parts industry and the close cooperation with mobile service carriers, which the Chinese government’s Mega Plan to enhance the potential capability of manufacturing smartphones is also backing,” said Park Rae-jung, head researcher at LG Economic Research Institute.
