Top Performers

ByteDance, Xiaomi, and SHEIN lead the list, showcasing the strength of Chinese brands in the entertainment, electronics, and fashion sectors.

Lenovo, Huawei, and AliExpress also remain strong contenders, emphasizing the diversity and innovation in China’s tech and e-commerce industries.

Sector Growth

Smart devices, automobiles, and e-commerce experienced the fastest brand power growth, with China’s industrial ecosystem and technological innovations providing a competitive edge.

Consumer electronics, entertainment apps, and online fashion account for a substantial portion of the brand power growth.

Brand Expansion

Chinese brands have successfully penetrated international markets, with notable growth in regions like Europe, North America, and Southeast Asia.

Brands like BYD and NIO in the automotive sector, and OPPO and Vivo in consumer electronics, have expanded their global footprints, contributing to the increasing brand power.

Market Trends

The report highlights a shift in consumer preferences towards brands that offer meaningful differentiation and high engagement. Brands that have successfully created unique and compelling brand experiences have seen significant growth.

There has been a notable increase in the brand power of mid-sized brands, indicating a shift from the dominance of top-tier brands to a more competitive landscape.

Notable Brand Highlights

• ByteDance: As a global leader in digital content and social media, ByteDance’s platforms like TikTok have become household names worldwide, driving significant brand recognition and engagement.
• Xiaomi: Known for its high-quality yet affordable electronics, Xiaomi continues to expand its product lines and market reach, solidifying its position as a leading global brand.
• SHEIN: The online fashion retailer has disrupted traditional retail with its fast-fashion model, capturing a significant global market share and expanding rapidly across multiple regions.
• BYD: In the automotive sector, BYD’s focus on electric vehicles has positioned it as a key player in the global shift towards sustainable transportation solutions.
• OPPO and Vivo: These smartphone giants have continued to innovate and expand their international presence, offering advanced technology and appealing to a broad consumer base.

Strategic Insights

The report suggests that the key to the success of Chinese global brands lies in their ability to offer meaningful differentiation and engage deeply with consumers. Brands that can innovate and adapt to changing consumer preferences will continue to thrive in the competitive global market.

• Consumer Engagement: Successful brands have invested in understanding and meeting the functional and emotional needs of their consumers, creating strong brand loyalty and advocacy.
• Technological Innovation: Continuous investment in technology and innovation has enabled Chinese brands to stay ahead of the curve, offering cutting-edge products that resonate with global consumers.
• Global Strategy: A tailored approach to international markets, considering local preferences and cultural nuances, has been crucial for the expansion and acceptance of Chinese brands abroad.

Top 50 Brands from Kantar BrandZ 2024 China Global Brands

1. ByteDance
2. Xiaomi
3. SHEIN
4. Lenovo
5. Huawei
6. AliExpress
7. Haier
8. TEMU
9. OPPO
10. Hisense
11. TCL
12. Tencent
13. vivo
14. Chery
15. BYD
16. Anker
17. DJI
18. MiHoYo
19. OnePlus
20. Kuaishou
21. realme
22. GWM
23. TP-LINK
24. HONOR
25. Lynk & Co
26. MAXUS
27. Insta360
28. WORX
29. Lilith
30. Century Games
31. JAC
32. Roborock
33. CHANGAN
34. Geely
35. Midea
36. DiDi
37. POCO
38. ECOVACS
39. Trip.com
40. Magic Tavern
41. Habby
42. Tsingtao Beer
43. EcoFlow
44. Infinix
45. IGG
46. Kunlun
47. eufy
48. 37Games
49. NetEase Games
50. LightInTheBox

BCG: The most innovative Chinese companies

Financial Highlights

Huawei reported a total revenue of RMB 704.2 billion (approximately USD 99.4 billion), marking a 9.6% increase from the previous year.

The company’s net profit rose dramatically to RMB 86.95 billion (approximately USD 12.28 billion), illustrating Huawei’s effective management and strategic realignment in response to external pressures and market dynamics.

The ICT infrastructure segment, a cornerstone of Huawei’s business, generated RMB 362 billion, a modest increase of 2.3% year-over-year. Meanwhile, the consumer business, including smartphones and other smart devices, brought in RMB 251.5 billion, surging by 17.3%.

The company’s burgeoning cloud computing and digital energy sectors witnessed growth rates of 21.9% and 3.5% respectively, further diversifying Huawei’s revenue streams. Notably, the smart car solutions business stood out with a remarkable growth of 128.1%, although from a smaller base, signaling Huawei’s strategic pivot towards new technology frontiers.

Strategic Investments in R&D

Huawei’s commitment to research and development (R&D) remained steadfast, with an investment of RMB 164.7 billion in 2023, accounting for 23.4% of its total revenue.

Over the past decade, the company has invested more than RMB 1.1 trillion in R&D, underscoring its long-term vision to lead in technological innovation and contribute to the global digital economy.

Expanding Global Footprint and Ecosystem

The report highlights Huawei’s efforts in expanding its global ecosystem and fostering open innovation. By the end of 2023, Huawei Cloud boasted over 6 million developers and more than 40,000 partners worldwide, creating a vibrant and innovative digital ecosystem.

Future Outlook

Looking ahead, Huawei remains optimistic about its future growth prospects. The company plans to continue its investment in core ICT technologies and platforms, enhancing its product and service offerings across different sectors.

Huawei’s chairman, Hu Houkun, emphasized the importance of quality, innovation, and open collaboration with partners to create greater value for customers and society at large.

However, the last quarter saw a 1.2% year-over-year increase in shipments, thanks to strong demand for premium smartphones, particularly in major cities. Apple’s strategic price cuts through third-party channels played a pivotal role in this growth, as did Honor’s reinforced channel partnerships and diversified product offerings, securing their respective top spots in the market.

A remarkable turnaround was Huawei’s re-entry into the top five, after more than two years, suggesting a revitalized competitive landscape. Despite these shifts, the final quarter of 2023 revealed nuanced dynamics: Apple and Honor slightly decreased their market shares, while Huawei saw a significant 36.2% increase, and the ‘Others’ category grew by 11.9%, indicating a diversifying market.

In contrast, Q4 2023 observed a 1.2% year-over-year uplift in shipments to 73.6 million units, halting a streak of declines over ten quarters. This rebound was spearheaded by robust demand for premium smartphones in major cities, while the market for lower-end phones lagged, despite their majority share in China’s market.

Arthur Guo, a senior research analyst at IDC China, highlighted Apple’s ascent to prominence amidst stiffened competition and subdued spending. Apple’s strategic price cuts through third-party channels spurred demand, securing its dominance.

Concurrently, Honor solidified its second position through enhanced channel partnerships and a diversified product suite, appealing to both high-end and mid-range segments.

A notable event in 4Q23 was Huawei’s resurgence in the top five after a hiatus exceeding two years, notes Will Wong, IDC Asia/Pacific’s senior research manager. This comeback intensifies competition in the world’s most significant smartphone arena.

The data reveals a mixed picture:

• Apple’s market share declined slightly from 20.6% in Q4 2022 to 20.0% in Q4 2023, indicating a -2.1% change.
• Honor also saw a slight dip from 17.1% to 16.8%, a -0.9% change.
• Vivo’s market presence shrank by -8.4%, dropping to 15.7% from 17.4%.
• Huawei defied the trend, soaring by +36.2% to reach a 13.9% market share, up from 10.3%.
• OPPO’s share fell by -16.1% to 13.7%, down from 16.5%.
• The ‘Others’ category grew by +11.9%, accumulating a 20.0% share, a significant collective rise.

The overall market dynamics for 2023 contrast with the final quarter, suggesting a nuanced recovery trajectory. While Apple and Honor lead the charge, with Huawei’s return signaling a potential market shakeup, companies like Vivo and OPPO may need to rethink strategies to maintain their footholds.

The Rise of Foldable Smartphones

In a notable development, IDC’s latest quarterly mobile phone tracker highlights the explosive growth of China’s foldable smartphone market, with shipments reaching approximately 2.77 million units in Q4 2023, a staggering 149.6% year-over-year increase.

This surge is propelled by new releases from Huawei, OPPO, and Honor, marking a continuous rapid growth trend for the fourth consecutive year, with a total of 7.01 million units shipped in 2023, up 114.5% from the previous year.

Improvements in hardware technology, software applications, and a drop in prices have enhanced the consumer experience and widened the foldable smartphone’s appeal. The price segment of $400-$600 is becoming increasingly populated, reflecting the segment’s potential for further growth.

Market Preferences and Performance

Consumers have shown a preference for horizontally folding devices over their vertically folding counterparts, despite the latter’s lower price points, due to the superior screen experience they offer.

Horizontally folding models, especially favored by the business sector for mobile office use, regained market share, reaching 68.1%, a 10.4 percentage point increase from the previous year.

In terms of market performance, Huawei dominated the foldable market with its Mate X5 series, capturing a 37.4% share.

OPPO followed with an 18.3% share, leading the vertically folding segment. Honor’s aggressive push in the second half of 2023 earned it third place, with a 17.7% share and the fastest growth rate of 467.0%. Samsung and Vivo rounded out the top five, facing stiff competition in the vibrant Chinese market.

Future Outlook

Arthur Guo of IDC China underscores the importance of balance between design and reliability in the foldable market.

As manufacturers vie for dominance in 2024, the foldable smartphone segment is set to continue its rapid expansion, driven by innovation and an increasing number of market players.

This evolving landscape suggests a dynamic future for China’s smartphone market, with foldable technology at the forefront of the next wave of mobile innovation.

The brand recognition of HarmonyOS has been steadily increasing year by year. From 50% in February 2021, it has risen to 85% in June of this year.

Currently, more than 700 million Harmony ecosystem devices are in use. These devices include smartphones, wearables, car cockpits, smart screens, tablets, smart home, headphones, and more.

In addition, the number of HarmonyOS developers has exceeded 2.2 million, with API calls reaching 59 billion times per day.

Regarding multi-device collaboration, there has been a 32% growth in fitness and health recording, and mobile application downloads have increased by more than 33%.

It is reported that Huawei began planning its proprietary operating system “HarmonyOS” in 2012 and officially released HarmonyOS in August 2019. After several iterations, HarmonyOS has gradually been applied to Huawei products such as smartphones, TVs, watches, and intelligent cockpits.

Huawei’s focus on HarmonyOS is a significant aspect of its strategy to create a complete ecosystem beyond smartphones. By covering various types of devices, such as wearables, car systems, and smart home appliances, HarmonyOS aims to provide a seamless user experience across the spectrum of everyday technologies.

The increase in brand recognition and the vast number of devices operating on HarmonyOS signal a positive trend for Huawei’s ambitions. With a growing developer community and a clear increase in application downloads, Harmony’s ecosystem seems to be maturing.

These achievements are essential for Huawei, particularly as international tensions and restrictions have impacted its operations in several markets. The development and success of HarmonyOS can give the company more control over its technology and reduce its dependence on foreign operating systems.

The latest updates shared during the Huawei Developer Conference 2023 mark a new milestone in the growth of HarmonyOS.

With significant advancements in multi-device collaboration and a surge in the developer community, Harmony is positioning itself as a comprehensive and versatile operating system. The continued expansion of Harmony’s ecosystem will likely play a crucial role in shaping Huawei’s future, strengthening its presence in various technological domains.

The fourth quarter of 2021 saw a year-on-year increase of 33% to US$7.7 billion. Canalys predicts that by 2026, the scale of the cloud infrastructure market in the mainland will reach US$85 billion, and the five-year compound annual growth rate will be 25%.

Visit here for AI Cloud market share.

Alibaba Cloud remains the leader with a 37% market share, ranking first in the cloud market in 2021, Huawei Cloud and Tencent Cloud second and third respectively, and Baidu AI cloud fourth. In 2021, the four cloud providers jointly accounted for 80% of the market share.

Huawei Cloud reached an 18% market share in 2021, with an annual growth of 67%. The rapid growth has widened the gap between Huawei cloud and Tencent Cloud, ranking second in the market.

Tencent cloud, the third-largest provider, accounted for 16% of the market share, an increase of 55%. Tencent Cloud grew steadily as a whole in 2021, with diversified growth in multiple sectors.

Baidu AI Cloud, the fourth-largest vendor, accounted for 9% of the market share, an increase of 55%.

Top 10 forecasts for China cloud computing market 2021-2024

China’s Public Cloud Services Market to Grow to 10.5% of global share by 2024

In 2020, the overall market size of global public cloud services (IAAs/PAAS/SaaS) reached US$312.42 billion, with a year-on-year growth of 24.1%, according to IDC.

The overall market size of China’s public cloud services reached US$19.38 billion, with a year-on-year growth of 49.7%, with the highest growth rate in all regions of the world. IDC predicts that the global share of China’s public cloud service market will increase from 6.5% in 2020 to more than 10.5% by 2024.

Check out market share of IaaS and PaaS markets in China here.

CIW Subscribers (Annual) can download the chart here to see the comparison of the cloud platforms in China.

Download China Internet Overview whitepaper here.

From the IaaS + PaaS market perspective, the first half of 2021 increased by 43% (vs. 48.6% in H1) year-on-year, down 6% from the first half of 2021, but still maintained the highest growth rate in the world.

In the next five years, China’s public cloud market will continue to grow at a compound growth rate of 30.9%. By 2026, the market is expected to reach US$105.76 billion, and the global share of China’s public cloud service market will increase from 6.7% in 2021 to 9.9%.

The competition in China’s cloud computing extends from focusing on infrastructure to the competition of comprehensive cloud platform capabilities. In addition to increasing investment in infrastructure construction at the IaaS layer, cloud vendors also continue to strengthen chip self-research capability, improve PaaS capability (data processing capability, cloud-native, low code development, etc.), build leading, fast, and perfect solution service capability and implementation and delivery ecology and develop a more comprehensive cloud platform.

The digital transformation of government and enterprises has fully entered the cloud era.

In the first half of 2021, the State Council put forward decisions on deepening the integrated development of new-generation information technology and manufacturing industry and creating new advantages of the digital economy.

Also read: the latest on China’s public cloud market

Local governments and regulators have issued relevant technical specifications and application standards of cloud computing platforms, actively promoted the all-around and in-depth integration of digital technology and social development, and accelerated the application and implementation of digital technology in various industries.

Cloud computing has become the basis and hub of digital transformation. Under this background, there is a huge demand and market space for cloud services in the field of government and enterprises.

Cloud vendors have released their own cloud-native strategies to seize the opportunity from the aspects of products, partners, standard-setting, talent cultivation, and so on.

Industry digitization and low-carbon development have become the mainstream trend. In terms of themselves, cloud vendors continue to improve product energy efficiency and promote the low-carbon development of the cloud industry by investing in innovative energy-saving technologies.

In terms of industry empowerment, cloud manufacturers invest in power electronics technology and integration and innovation with digital technology, promote the development of clean energy and the digitization of traditional energy, bring digital technology to each industry, and support all walks of life to promote low-carbon development through digitization.

In both IaaS and Iaas+PaaS markets, the competition is tight. The leading vendors Alibaba Cloud, Huawei Cloud, and Tencent Cloud have firmly taken the top three positions and jointly have 60% of the market share.

Cloud vendors in the network operator camp grew rapidly, with independent research and development and cloud network integration as their keywords.

The fourth ranked China Telecom Tianyi Cloud formed a full-stack cloud product system by the end of 2020, further deepened to the vertical industry and territory in 2021, sank the resource and service team to the local city, and the local cloud business grew rapidly, creating a new growth level for Tianyi Cloud.

Pricing only the 2nd most important in China for choosing cloud vendors

The top 5 smartphone vendors in the Chinese market in the fourth quarter of 2022 are Apple (20.6%), Vivo (17.5%), Honor (17.1%), Oppo (15.6%), and Xiaomi (11.6%).

In 2022, the top five smartphone vendors in the year are Vivo (18.6%), Honor (18.1%), Oppo (16.8%), Apple (16.8%), and Xiaomi (13.7%).

China smartphone shipment in Q3 2022; total shipments down 12%

In the third quarter of 2022, the Chinese smartphone market shipped approximately 71.13 million units, down 11.9% year-on-year, according to data from IDC.

Although the decline narrowed for the first time this year, market demand continued to be sluggish following the first half of the year; thanks to the early release of Apple’s iPhone 14 series and the return of Huawei’s Mate 50 series, the domestic smartphone market achieved a quarter-on-quarter growth of 6.0% in the third quarter.

In the third quarter, Vivo returned to first place in China’s domestic smartphone market in terms of shipments, with a market share of 20.0%. The sub-brand iQOO has been continuously recognized by the market with its good product strength and competitive pricing, and its market share has continued to increase, reaching 4.6% of the domestic market in the third quarter.

The Vivo X series continued the excellent performance of the previous quarter and maintained its leadership in the mid-to-high-end market of US$400-600

Honor and Oppo’s shipments ranked 2nd and 3rd in Q3 2022 with 17.9% and 16.3% market share respectively..

Apple’s ranking rose one place, and its market share increased month-on-month to 15.1%, the only top smartphone vendor to maintain year-on-year growth. Although the two models of the iPhone 14 Pro are still very popular, the iPhone 14 and the iPhone 14 Plus, which were only officially shipped in October, have limited appeal to consumers due to their small upgrades compared to the previous generation, while the iPhone 13 series is still favored.

Xiaomi smartphones shipped about 9 million units in the third quarter, accounting for 12.7% of the market.

In Q3 2022, China’s single-quarter shipments of foldable smartphones exceeded 1 million, a year-on-year increase of about 246%, the largest single-quarter shipment in history.

Strong brand and product power helped Huawei to remain in the first position in the domestic foldable screen smartphone market, with a market share of 44.9%.

Samsung’s two new products, Z Fold4 and Z Flip4, have significantly better sales than the previous generation, ranking second, accounting for 22.2% of the market share in the foldable smartphone segment.

The newly released X Fold+ series also helped Vivo to rise to third place in this market, with a market share of 11.9%. Xiaomi’s new MIX FOLD 2 has also won a better market reputation than the previous generation due to its thin and light appearance, and its market share has increased to 9.3%, ranking fourth.

China IoT market to account for 45% of global spend by 2025

China smartphone market share in Q2 2022

In the second quarter of 2022, China’s smartphone shipment reached about 67.2 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 14.7%, according to data from IDC. In the first half of the year, the domestic smartphone shipment totaled about 140 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 14.4%.

Honor ranked first in domestic market shipments in the second quarter, and Vivo ranked second. In the first half of the year, the domestic shipments of foldable smartphones exceeded 1.1 million, with a year-on-year increase of about 70%.

China smartphone market share in Q1 2022; Apple has 16.7% share

In the first quarter of 2022, China’s smartphone market saw about 74.2 million units shipment, a year-on-year decrease of 14.1%, according to data from IDC.

The impact of the continuous rebound of the epidemic on consumers’ budgets and the small upgrading range of new products have led to the continuous downturn of market demand.

The more uncertain overseas market prospect has led many mobile phone manufacturers to adopt more stable and conservative operation strategies, and the market will face great challenges throughout the year.

Oppo ranked first in terms of domestic smartphone shipment market share in the first quarter, followed by Honor, with a very high year-on-year increase, Vivo in the third place, Apple in the fourth place, and Xiaomi in fifth place.

At the same time, the negative impact of the current domestic epidemic on the logistics and supply side of the mobile phone market is relatively controllable, which brings about the delay in meeting part of the demand.

If there is no additional positive stimulus, the capacity of China’s smartphone market may fall below the 300 million mark in 2022, according to IDC.

Vivo has the largest market share of 19.7% by total smartphone sales, according to Counterpoint, followed by Oppo (18%), apple (17.9%), Honor (16.9%), Xiaomi (14.9%), and Huawei (6.2%). In the first quarter, domestic mobile phone sales fell 14% year-on-year to 74.2 million.

The Greater Bay Area is home to more top brands than any other region in China with 134 brands represented in the ranking.

The banking sector dominates with 85 brands accounting for 22% of total brand value in ranking, with ICBC once again crowned China’s most valuable brand.

Leading fight against health emergency, pharma sector sees greatest brand value increase, up staggering 123%. Leading the way as the sector’s most valuable brand is Sinopharm, which has recorded a 58% brand value increase to US$3.2 billion.

Retail is the second most valuable sector – with 17 brands featuring and accounting for 10% of the total brand value – and also the second-fastest-growing sector, recording a cumulative brand value growth of 54%.

The top four Chinese e-commerce brands – Taobao, Tmall, Alibaba.com, and JD.com – have all seen significant brand value growth. Taobao (brand value US$53.3 billion) and Tmall (brand value US$49.2 billion) have entered the top 10 for the first time following 44% and 60% brand value increases, respectively.

Alibaba.com’s brand value has been boosted by 108% to US$39.2 billion, simultaneously propelling the brand from 22nd to 13th – a result of a huge spike in demand. JD.com enjoyed an 82% brand value increase to US$23.5 billion, following a 30% rise in its annual shopper count.

Pinduoduo is the fastest growing brand in China, up 148% to US$6.3 billion and jumping 60 places in the ranking to 63rd. Read about Pinduoduo’s road to brand upgrade.

Perseverance of brands in investment and infrastructure development pays off – solid performances across real estate and engineering & construction sectors.

Media sector surges 33%.

• WeChat is China’s and the world’s strongest brand with a top score of 95.4 out of 100 and AAA+ brand strength rating.
• TikTok/Douyin (brand value US$18.7 billion), has taken the 24th spot as the highest new entrant.
• Bilibili up 106% to US$1.9 billion

Top 500 Chinese Brands in 2021

Members can download the list here (Excel; annual and CIW Premium subscribers).

Top Global Brands 2021

US and Chinese brands account for two-thirds of the total brand value of the world’s 500 most valuable brands, according to the latest report by Brand Finance – a brand valuation consultancy.

US brands boast a cumulative brand value of a staggering US$3.3 trillion, equating to 46% of the total brand value in the ranking. Chinese brands’ total brand value is US$1.4 trillion, equating to 20%.

Apple has overtaken Amazon and Google to reclaim the title of the world’s most valuable brand for the first time since 2016 with an impressive 87% brand value increase to US$263.4 billion and.

• Tesla leaves traditional auto marques behind with the fastest brand value growth in ranking, up 158%
  CBS is the fasting-falling brand in ranking, down 49%
• Airline and aerospace sectors account for 6 out of 10 fastest-falling brands in the ranking
• Hospitality suffers from travel and dining restrictions, as Marriott and Airbnb check out from ranking and Starbucks, McDonald’s, and KFC see brand values drop
• Mastercard’s Ajay Banga best among top 100 CEOs in Brand Finance Brand Guardianship Index 2021

Top 100 best Chinese brands, led by Alibaba and Tencent

Globally, the key benefits of 5G other than speed gains (e.g. network slicing, edge computing, and low-latency services) are not widely appreciated, with many companies believing 4G is ‘good enough’.

But China is a clear exception. Early partnerships and trials from local operators have paid dividends, as evidenced by the widespread intent among companies in the country’s industrial sector to utilize 5G.

Chinese operators are also leading the charge for standalone (SA) 5G, which will help deliver the key benefits of 5G for enterprises.

Awareness and knowledge of 5G are rising as hype makes way for reality.

Chinese consumers are among the most excited by the prospect of 5G. They are generally more optimistic than other markets about the benefits of 5G, with greater expectations of lower service costs, innovative services and new connected devices.

In addition, consumers in China are likely earlier adopters of 5G (versus the US, Japan, and Europe) and seem the most willing to pay more for 5G services – a key driver of potential 5G consumer revenue uplift.

4G is by far the dominant mobile technology across China, accounting for more than 80% of total connections (excluding licensed cellular IoT). However, 4G’s share will peak in 2020 (at 82%) as 5G grows significantly.

Several 5G smartphones have been launched, many by local OEMs, and Chinese consumers are among the most keen to upgrade to 5G.

As a result, China will account for 70% of global 5G connections in 2020, and 5G adoption will grow to just under 50% by 2025, placing the country among the leading nations along with South Korea, Japan and the US.

To support this generational shift and drive consumer engagement, Chinese operators are expected to invest more than $180 billion between 2020 and 2025 in mobile capex, roughly 90% of which will be on 5G networks.

Despite some financial headwinds – including market saturation, increasing competition and the country’s ‘speed upgrade and tariff reduction’ policy – China’s mobile revenue remains stable.

Financials will recover in 2020 and 2021, and revenue will rise steadily at around 1% per year to 2025, largely because of growing revenues in enterprise IoT and new 5G services.

By the end of 2019, 1.2 billion people subscribed to mobile services across China.

This accounts for 82% of the region’s population and places China among the world’s most developed markets. As with all advanced markets, adding new subscribers is increasingly difficult, with the cost of reaching rural populations hard to justify against a challenging financial backdrop for operators.

Despite this, there will be around 60 million new subscribers by 2025.

Since 2012, the number of people subscribing to the mobile internet across China has doubled to more than 900 million. By 2025, nearly 260 million people will start using the mobile internet for the very first time, almost halving the unconnected proportion of the population to 22%.

Mobile continues to make a significant contribution to the Chinese economy.

In 2019, mobile technologies and services generated $759 billion of economic value added (5.4% of GDP) across China. This figure will surpass $900 billion by 2024 as the region increasingly benefits from the improvements in productivity and efficiency brought about by the increased take-up of mobile services.

Download the full report here (CIW annual subscribers) including key trends shaping the mobile industry, mobile contributing to economic growth and addressing social challenges, and policies to accelerate digital development. Subscribe here.

BCG research has shown that companies doubling down on innovation during downturns—using the opportunity to invest and position for the recovery—outperform over the long term.

Of the 162 companies that have been on BCG’s top 50 “most innovative companies” list over the past 14 years, nearly 30% appeared just once—and 57% appeared three times or fewer. Only 8 companies have made the list every year: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Samsung, and Toyota.

Only 20 Companies (12%) have made the Top 50 List more than 10 times: Daimler, Dell, Facebook, Siemens, Walmart, 3M, GE, Intel, Nike, P&G, BMW, Cisco, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Samsung, Toyota.

Five Chinese companies made it to the Top 50 Global Most Innovative Companies list, including Huawei (6), Alibaba (7), Tencent (14), Xiaomi (24), and JD (31).

While 60% of companies rank innovation as a top 3 priority, not all walk the talk, according to the BCG survey.

Top Mobile Apps in China

The novel coronavirus outbreak has increased the demand for telecommuting and online education, which has led to an increase in demand for tablet computers. However, the factors such as lockdown, manpower, spare parts, logistics, and others have led to the difficulty in meeting the market demand from the factory capacity, and the mainstream brand products are in a shortage for a long time.

IDC believes that affected by the epidemic, telecommuting and online education will be further normalized in the future, and the demand for tablet computers will be significantly increased.

Affected by the epidemic, in the first quarter, the shipments of business tablet markets were significantly reduced, with only 620,000 units shipped, down 47.8% year on year.

Driven by the demand for online education of students, the performance of the consumer market is better than expected, but the production capacity still restricts the supply of products. The shipment volume is about 3.1 million units, down 24.6% year on year.

Huawei’s shipment volume ranks the first, about 1.5 million, with a year-on-year growth of 4.3%, accounting for 40.2% of the market share.

Apple’s followed closely, with 1.31 million units shipped, with a year-on-year drop of 42.5%, accounting for 35.1% of the market share.

Xiaomi’s third, with a year-on-year drop of 31.3%, accounting for 5.5% of the market share; Microsoft and Lenovo are in the fourth and fifth place with shipments of about 120,000 and 60,000 units respectively, with market shares of 3.2% and 1.7% respectively.

Read China’s tablet shipment in the latest quarter here.

China filed 58,990 applications in 2019 via WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) System, comparing with the U.S. 57,840 applications. The U.S. held the top position each year since the PCT began operations in 1978.

In 1999, WIPO received 276 applications from China. By 2019, that number rose to 58,990 – a 200-fold increase in only twenty years.

Asia-based applicants now account for more than half of all PCT applications (52.4%) while Europe (23.2%) and North America (22.8%) accounted for less than a quarter each.

In 2019, the top five users of the PCT were: China (58,990 PCT applications), the U.S (57,840), Japan (52,660), Germany (19,353) and the Republic of Korea (19,085).

Among the top 15 origins, Turkey (+46.7%), the Republic of Korea (+12.8%), Canada (+12.2%) and China (+10.6%) recorded double-digit annual growth in 2019. The strong growth for Turkey moved it up in the top 15 rank for the first time.

Among the top 15 origins, Germany (-2%) and the Netherlands (-3%) are the only two origins to report a decrease in filings.

International patent applications filed via the PCT grew by 5.2% (265,800 applications) in 2019, while international trademark applications via the Madrid System for the International Registration of Marks increased by 5.7% (64,400 applications).

For the third consecutive year, China-based telecoms giant Huawei Technologies, with 4,411 published PCT applications, was the top corporate filer in 2019. It was followed by:

• Mitsubishi Electric Corp. of Japan (2,661);
• Samsung Electronics of the Republic of Korea (2,334;
• Qualcomm Inc. of the U.S. (2,127); and
• Guang Dong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications of China (1,927).

The top 10 applicant list comprises four companies from China, two from the Republic of Korea, and one each from Germany, Japan, Sweden and the U.S.. The top 10-university list comprises five universities from the U.S., four from China and one from the Republic of Korea.

International Patent Applications by Country

International trademark system (Madrid System)

Trademark owners filed a record 3,693 cases under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) with WIPO’s Arbitration and Mediation Center, while WIPO’s two-dozen plus treaties gained 55 new accessions or ratifications in 2019 and preliminary financial results showed an approximate surplus of 97.5 million Swiss francs.

U.S.-based applicants (10,087) filed the largest number of international trademark applications using WIPO’s Madrid System in 2019, followed by those located in Germany (7,700), China (6,339), France (4,437) and Switzerland (3,729).

L’Oréal of France with 189 applications headed the list of top filers, followed by Novartis AG of Switzerland (135), Huawei Technologies of China (131), Nirsan Connect Private Limited of India (124) and Rigo Trading of Luxembourg (103).

For the first time, applicants from China and India are among the top five applicants.

Protection for industrial designs via the Hague System for the International Registration of Industrial Designs saw a 10.4% growth (21,807 designs), capping another record-setting year for WIPO’s global IP services.

About WIPO

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is the global forum for intellectual property policy, services, information and cooperation. A specialized agency of the United Nations, WIPO assists its 193 member states in developing a balanced international IP legal framework to meet society’s evolving needs.

Over the recent years, smart products appeared in many daily life scenarios, smart home living, including smart TV, vacuum robot, smart lock, and smart speakers, are expected to receive good market recognition in 2019.

In 2019, the price range of the smartphone that majority of China internet users purchase is between 2001 and 3000 yuan (US$291-436) as well as 3001 and 5000 yuan (US$436-727).

Out of the brands that online users consider on top of their minds, Huawei ranks the first. While Xiaomi and Apple take the second and the third place, Xiaomi is favored by male and Apple is favored by the female.

According to Tencent research by Penguin Intelligence, Huawei enjoys the highest loyalty, 62.2%. When replacing the smartphone, 69.4% of online users are expecting better battery performance; also, the core features such as operating system experience and hardware performance are priorities.

When making a purchase, more online users prefer online purchase to offline purchase (54.8% vs 45.2%). The percentage of males, younger customers who do not deny the idea of purchasing used phones are higher.

Regionally, Apple users in first-tier cities take the highest percentage, and user ratio of Xiaomi in tier-2 cities, Huawei in tier-3 cities are the highest. OPPO and Vivo’s user ratios are higher in lower-tier cities.

In 2019, 88.5% of online users plan to purchase at least one smart device of which smartphone accounts the most, with 66.7% of online users are thinking of buying one. Users’ purchase intention for other mobile devices such as smartwatches is 25.6% in term of penetration ratio.

Over the recent years, smart products appeared in many daily life scenarios, smart home living, including smart TV, vacuum robot, smart lock, and smart speakers, are expected to receive good market recognition in 2019.

When choosing smart devices, 80.2% online users prioritize the practical features while the price is an aspect that nearly sixty percent of online users will consider. Other than that, branding, convenience, technical features are considered by over forty percent of China online users.

Premium features as branding, technical features, and design are significantly less considered compared to practicality and price. online users’ purchase of smart devices is more rational in 2019, which can even be regarded as a sign of consumption downgrade.

Among the most expected smart products, security and vacuum products rank the first and the second respectively. Other than that, 56.5% of online users are looking forward to household products that can aromatically adjust the living environment.

For online users more willing to buy foreign smart products, 51.2% of them are considering smartphone and over thirty percent of them are considering foreign smart locks, vacuum robot, and smart TV.

When making a purchase of smart products, online users in the tier-1 cities are most willing to buy foreign products, accounting for 55.8%. In general, the difference in preference of foreign smart devices among online users of different cities is not significant.

Although the willingness of tier-4 and lower-tier cities online users for buying foreign smart products is the lowest, the percentage is still close to the half, reaching 48.5%.

Meanwhile, the younger the online users, the more recognition for foreign products, the percentage of post-00s who are more willing to buy foreign products is as high as 61%.

This is an excerpt from eBook Purchase Intention of Smart Device in China

A Gartner research shows Database Management Systems (DBMS) cloud services are already $10.4 billion of the $46.1 billion DBMS market in 2018. And, the overall DBMS Market grew at 18.4% from 2017 to 2018 – its best growth in over a decade. Cloud DBMS accounted for 68% of that growth.

Amazon Web Services and Microsoft combined account for 75% of the growth from 2017 to 2018. AWS is 100% cloud and Microsoft DBMS growth (Gartner believes) was almost 100% cloud. Cloud growth is dramatically changing vendor rankings.

Alibaba (9), Huawei (11), and Tencent Cloud (13) made it to the top 15 of Gartner Total DBMS Market Share Ranks 2018.

Internet users and market overview: China vs. the U.S.

The three leading smartphone brands – Huawei (excluding Honor), Xiaomi, and iPhone – kept winning more shares in urban China market as all grew their shares over a year ago, according to the Q3 data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. Xiaomi Mi 8 was the most popular handset model in Q3 2018. The next three models on the best-seller ranking were all from iPhone, including the runner-up iPhone X.

As more brands followed iPhone’s suit to launch premium products, the average selling price of smartphones in Q3 increased across the industry. The proportion of sales from premium models increased by 7 percentage points from a year ago.

Huawei continued to win consumers from other brands. Huawei ranked No.1 in terms of net new consumers won (=total new consumers won – total new consumers lost) in Q3, followed by iPhone.

Among all the users leaving Huawei and Honor, the proportion of people joining iPhone camp decreased from a year ago. While the proportions of OPPO/VIVO-turned-iPhone user increased.

There is a lot in common in ex-OPPO/VIVO users, such as they’re relatively young, most of them live in tier-1 and -2 cities, not happy with chips and speed, pay attention to other people’s recommendations, etc.

It’s more important, and to some extent easier, for smartphone brands to keep existing consumers compared to win over consumers. They need to invest more in raising loyalty, according to Liang Yaguang, Consumer Insight Director of Kantar Worldpanel ComTech China.

The average Net Promoter Score (NPS) among Chinese consumers dropped in Q3. Huawei (excluding Honor), VIVO, and OPPO are above the average among mainstream iPhone. The NPS for Samsung eclipsed that of Xiaomi for the first time.

As major brands keep expanding their user bases, the user profiles began to look more like each other. OPPO and VIVO both had more male users while Huawei (excluding Honor) and Xiaomi had obtained more female consumers.

In the United States, Android lost ground to iOS in Q3. Early sales of iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max models in the United States are good news for Apple.

Combined with the continued strong momentum among iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, these sales have contributed to a 5.0 percentage point increase in OS share for Apple in the US – the biggest gain seen worldwide in Q3 2018.

iPhone 8 was the top-selling model in the US over the quarter, with a 9.4% share of the handset market, according to Dominic Sunnebo, Global Director for Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

But in the five main European markets (UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy), Android made significant gains against iOS. The Samsung Galaxy S9 was the top-selling model across the big five markets in September. Meanwhile, the newly released Galaxy Note 9 has made it into the top 10 most popular models for the month. Both Huawei (P20 Lite) and Xiaomi (Mi Note 5) made it to the top five handset ranking for the first time.

European consumers are holding on to their handsets more than two months longer than they were in 2016. Huawei has consolidated its position as the second best-selling brand in Europe behind Samsung from the launch of its P20 series.

Xiaomi continued to expand rapidly in Spain and, more recently, in Italy and France. The focused push that Huawei and Xiaomi are making into Europe is causing pain for their rivals across the board. However, it is Sony, LG, and Wiko who are being disproportionally impacted as a result of their historic over-reliance on the ultra-competitive low and mid-price tiers.

In Japan, Apple continued to lead handset sales under the pressure from Sharp and Huawei, both of which has increased shares of sales by 6 percentage points and 3.2 percentage points, respectively. Sharp’s flagship Aquos R2 and Huawei’s P20 Lite were among the top five best-sellers for the third quarter.

This post was originally published on Kantar.com.

China had a total of 751,000 new patent filings in H1 2018, 217,000 of which were granted, according to the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO). Specifically, 171,000 granted invention patents are domestic patents, among which, 159,000 are service innovation-creation, accounting for 93.2% of granted domestic patents.

By the end of June 2018, Chinese mainland had altogether 1.475 million invention patent filings and the average number of invention patents reached 10.6 per 10,000 people.

Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. took the first spot on the top 10 ranking with 1,775 granted invention patents, followed by Sinopec Group (1,569) and OPPO (1,520).

Beijing tops the list of top 10 Chinese regions securing the highest number of invention patents per 10,000 people in H1 2018.

SIPO has handled 23,000 PCT filings in H1 2018, among which, 21,600 from domestic, up by 7.6% year-on-year. There are 7 regions filed with over 500 PCT applications, combined accounting for over 80% of the national PCT filings.

Check out the forecast of China’s mobile internet market 2018-2020.

Chinese smartphone brand Xiaomi, which is making debut in Europe, earned 4.4% of sales market share in five major European markets in Q1 2018, ranking No.4, according to latest smartphone OS data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

The top three brands in the big five European markets, Samsung, Apple, and Huawei, made up 71% of smartphone sales in the latest quarter, but it is still very impressive for the newcomer Xiaomi to quietly take the fourth spot. Its growth has come predominantly from just two markets, Spain and Italy. It is also worth mentioning that these were also the markets that another Chinese brand Huawei had conquered first in Europe.

According to media reports, Xiaomi is scheduled to go public in Hong Kong this July and expected to raise as much as US$10 billion in the IPO. It plans to use 30% of the proceeds to fund for its overseas expansion, said its prospectus.

Dominic Sunnebo, Global Director for Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, comments: “Despite being a household name in China and India, Xiaomi has turned its attention to Europe late, and it has quickly proven to be a worthy opponent.

In Asia, Xiaomi’s business model has been focused online and while this remains an important factor in its European model, it is local partnerships with key players like Media Markt, Media World and Carrefour that has allowed it to accelerate sales so quickly.”

On Xiaomi’s home turf of China, it is also the best performing brand in Q1: in urban China, its market share grew 7 percentage points from a year ago to reach 17.9%.

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.

Panelists 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.

In Q1, urban Chinese consumers’ loyalty towards smartphone brands continued to decline: it had slid to 26.6 in the three months from 28.3 a year ago. People are considering more features of a phone when buying a new one – it reached a record high of 4.5 per person, compared with only 3 in the same period of 2015. Among them, “reliability” has overtaken “screen size” and “quality of camera” to become the highest priority for Chinese consumers.

In fact, this trend will be music to Apple’s ears, because our survey has shown that Apple enjoys the highest satisfaction rating among Chinese consumers for “reliability”. For Android brands, Huawei is the highest in this aspect.

This could partly explain why iPhone X is not only Apple’s best-selling model in China but also the best-selling model among all smartphone models in Q1 2018.  This has fuelled iPhone’s market share to 22.1%.

Back to Europe, with Huawei’s entry to the US market effectively blocked by the government, the business has increased the focus and resources it is aiming at Europe. Despite the well-reviewed Huawei P20 flagship not being released until April, the results are already showing.

Huawei has managed to significantly increase its presence across the big five European markets and it now holds almost a fifth of sales in the three months to March 2018 – 19.0%, up from 14.4% a year earlier.

“Most encouraging for Huawei are the signs that progress is finally being made in Great Britain, with share rising to 5.9% – it needs to conquer this market if it’s going to realize its ambition of becoming a premium choice for consumers,” Dominic said.

In the United States, Apple and Samsung have managed to eke out year-on-year share gains, up 0.1 of one percentage point and 1.4 percentage points respectively. Google has achieved its highest ever quarterly sales share of 3.4%, up from 1.7% a year earlier, thanks to the success of its Pixel line. ZTE, also under pressure from the US government, saw its sales share fall to 2.5% in the latest quarter.

In the US and the European top five markets, iPhone 8 sold in marginally higher numbers than the flagship iPhone X, indicating that as early iPhone X demand is fulfilled, the price difference between the two devices is playing a notable role in consumers’ choices.

Find out here what Xiaomi reveals in its IPO filing.

This post was originally published on Kantar.com.

China smartphone market declined 15.7% year-over-year (YoY) in Q4 2017 and 4.9% for the whole of 2017 according to IDC.

Apple’s share increased YoY and QoQ in Q4 2017. Although the iPhone X was available in short supply initially at launch in early November 2017, the supply constraints for this model eased towards the end of the quarter. Apple’s ASP increased by 23.9% YoY in 2017Q4 largely due to the shipments of the iPhone X. Apple alone made up 85% of the overall shipments in >US$600 premium segment.

Huawei appears on the radar to compete with Apple in the >US$600 premium segment. Huawei grew in Q4 2017 largely due to the strong shipment for both its Honor and Huawei branded phones in the US$600 premium segment still remains low, it has grown from making up 2% of the shipments in this segment in 2016Q4 to 8% in Q4 2017. With its Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro series being quite popular, Huawei will be a potential competitor to Apple in the >US$600 premium segment in China.

With Samsung’s continued troubles in the China market, Huawei has successfully managed to break into the high-end Android vendor space, although price points of the flagship Huawei phones are carefully priced lower than the iPhone prices at launch.

OPPO and vivo are focusing more on the mid-range segment, with a higher share of their portfolio focused on the mid-range segment compared to a year ago. The reduction in the number of OPPO and vivo models in the low-end segment also contributed to their YoY decline in Q4 2017.

While focusing more on the mid-range segment has hurt its overall shipment growth, OPPO and Vivo’s overall ASPs have increased YoY. In terms of revenue, OPPO ranked second to Apple and was above Huawei. vivo follows at fourth place. Thus, while OPPO’s shipments may have declined, it is growing in terms of its overall revenue.

China smartphone users: iPhone vs Android

China’s overall image is steadily improving overseas. Countries whose score of China rose the most were all developed countries; awareness of the Belt and Road Initiative rose significantly from three years ago; Chinese food and high-speed railway are most mentioned cultural and high-tech elements.

The 2016-2017 China National Image Global Survey was jointly released on January 5, 2018 by the Academy for Contemporary China-World Studies (former Centre for International Communication Studies under the China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration), Kantar Millward Brown and Lightspeed.

The annual survey, which was the fifth in this series, interviewed citizens of 22 countries, covering Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia), Europe (the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Turkey, Spain and Holland), North America (the US, Canada and Mexico), South America (Brazil, Argentina and Chile), Oceania (Australia) and Africa (South Africa).

With 500 respondents from each country, a total of 11,000 respondents selected from the global panel of Lightspeed Research were included in this survey.

Trying to present a comprehensive view about China, the survey polled the global respondents on China’s overall image and influence, and its images related to politics, diplomacy, economy, culture, science and technology since 2016.

China’s overall image is steadily improving internationally

China scores 6.22 on the 10-point system of its overall image, maintaining a slight upward curve in recent years. Generally, developing countries had better impressions of China than developed countries, but China’s image improved more in developed countries than developing ones. Compared with 2015, the three countries whose score of China rose the most were all developed countries: Italy (up 0.5 points), Canada (up 0.4 points) and the UK (up 0.4 points).

(All charts are based on 10,500 overseas samples unless stated otherwise)

A big oriental country with a rich history, a contributor to global development

A big oriental country with a rich history and full of charm: This was the most impressive image of China in the eyes of overseas respondents (57%), those in developed countries, in particular. Nearly 40% of the overseas respondents recognized China’s contribution to global development, and the figure was nearly 50% in developing countries (48%).

Overseas respondents are optimistic about China’s future development. Those in developed and developing countries both believed that China’s international status and global influence would continue to grow and that China would lead the new round of globalization and contribute more to global governance.

An increasing number of overseas respondents –17% in 2013, 20% in 2014 and 24% in 2015 –thought that China would become the world’s largest economy, and the proportion was 33% in Survey 2016-2017. This showed that the international community had more confidence in China’s economic prospects.

There were still people, 36%, who agreed that China still faces such challenges as economic disparity and environmental pollution.

Belt and Road Initiative is highly praised

In Survey 2014, only 6% of the overseas respondents had heard of both the “Silk Road economic belt” and the “21st century maritime Silk Road”. The ratio rose to 18% in Survey 2016-2017, and was as high as 40% in Indonesia, India and other countries situated along the routes.

Most of the respondents thought that the Initiative is significant to their countries and themselves, to regional and global economy, and to global governance. Those in developing countries and the youth welcomed the Initiative more.

Relatively positive reaction to China’s growing economic influence

China’s economic influence ranks second in the world, next only to the US.

Similar to the previous survey, overseas respondents overall thought that China’s economic development promotes global economic development, that China is willing to cooperate with others in economy and trade, and that their countries have benefited from China’s economic growth. Developing countries’ comments on China’s economic influence were more positive than developed countries.

In the eyes of overseas respondents, Chinese enterprises’ entry and presence brings along new capital and technologies and creates job opportunities to other countries.

Compared with the previous survey, there was a notable drop (-10 percentage points) in the number of people who feared about the negative effect of the Chinese enterprises on the development of local firms and brands.

Traditional brands enjoy higher popularity

Lenovo, Huawei, Alibaba, Air China (up 2 notches) and Bank of China (up 6) are the five most renowned Chinese brands among overseas respondents. Compared with the previous survey, Bank of China, BYD (up 7) and other brands of traditional industries gained in popularity.

Cuisine best represents Chinese culture, high-speed rail most recognized high-tech achievement

Speaking of the elements that best represent Chinese culture, 52% of the overseas respondents chose cuisine, 47% ticked traditional Chinese medicine, and 44% marked off martial arts.

Overseas and Chinese respondents held different views in this regard. Compared with the Chinese themselves, the overseas respondents had a much lower recognition of Confucius and Confucianism (Chinese 62% vs foreign 26%), classics (55% vs 22%), and folk show and acrobatics (36% vs 16%), but had a higher recognition of Chinese products and scientific inventions.

About 59% of the overseas respondents made a positive assessment of China’s technological innovation capacity, and the proportion was as high as 71% in developing countries.

High-speed rail (36%) was China’s best known technological achievement, followed by manned space flight (19%) and the supercomputer (16%).

Interest in visiting China

Of the overseas respondents, nearly 30% planned to study, work or travel in China in the next three years. The proportion was nearly 40% in developing countries, with the top four being Indonesia (60%), Saudi Arabia (52%), India (51%) and Russia (41%).

Beijing (38%), Hong Kong (27%) and Shanghai (25%) were the three most favored Chinese cities among the overseas people. This was generally the same as in the previous survey. More cities were gaining potential visitors, showing an increasing diversity in their destinations.

REPORT Digital screens wider and deeper influence in China

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

In the ninth year of the world’s largest 24-hour shopping event, this year’s Tmall Double 11 2017 will showcase:

Alibaba Economy at scale. 11.11 will demonstrate the technological innovation and global scale of the entire Alibaba Economy. More than 140,000 brands and hundreds of millions of consumers will participate in 11.11 this year. This shopping festival will be supported by Alibaba’s global cloud, payment and logistics infrastructure.

Consumers will enjoy seamless payment and consumer loan services provided by Ant Financial. Alibaba Cloud will serve as the core technology and computing backbone to ensure the best consumer experience throughout the festival. Cainiao Network expects over 3 million logistics personnel to facilitate the hundreds of millions of packages that will be generated from the festival.

The number of annual active consumers on Alibaba’s China retail marketplaces reached 488 million, an increase of 22 million from the 12-month period ended June 30, 2017. See the performance highlights of Alibaba in Q3 2017 here.

Power of the Chinese consumer. Alibaba expects that hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers who visit its platforms on November 11 will have access to over 60,000 international brands and merchants to satisfy their increasing demand for goods and products from around the world. This year, Tmall will, for the first time, leverage its popularity outside China to bring over 100 domestic Chinese brands to international markets, targeting millions of overseas Chinese consumers in Asia and the rest of the world.

New Retail implementation. Alibaba’s New Retail model with integrated online-offline customer offerings will be showcased in store locations across China. More than 1,000 brands will convert nearly 100,000 physical locations into “smart stores” and our channel distribution solutions make it easy for more than 500,000 local neighborhood stores and Rural Taobao service centers to sell to consumers in lower-tier cities and rural villages.

Tmall Double 11 Sales Stats 2017

Total sales on Tmall Double 11 Shopping Festival reached 168.2 billion yuan in 2017 from 225 countries and regions, 90% from mobile.

167 merchants each has total transactions of over 100 million yuan. Nike store became the first one with over 1 billion yuan in apparel category.

Top 50 Tmall Stores on Double 11 2017

1. Suning
2. Xiaomi
3. Honor (Huawei)
4. Haier
5. Nike
6. Uniqlo
7. Sharp
8. Adidas
9. Linshimuye (furniture)
10. Midea
11. Quanyou (furniture)
12. GREE
13. Huawei
14. Gujia (furniture)
15. Heilan Home
16. PurCotton
17. Sanzhi Songshu (snacks)
18. P&G
19. Dyson
20. GXG
21. Balabala (children apparel)
22. New Balance
23. Semir
24. Peacebird
25. Jack Jones
26. Pechoin
27. Veromoda
28. ecovacs
29. Lancome
30. Zara
31. ONLY
32. Estee Lauder
33. Hisense
34. Anta
35. Philips
36. Gap
37. Chando
38. Eifini
39. Fotile
40. HSTYLE
41. Vivo
42. SK-II
43. Olay
44. Skyworth
45. Little Swan
46. Meters/bonwe (Apparel)
47. Xilinmen
48. Li Ning
49. Siemens
50. Bosideng (Apparel)

Outdoor sports

1. Nike
2. Adidas
3. Anta
4. New Balance
5. Li Ning
6. Sketchers
7. Puma
8. Xstep
9. Under Armour
10. Camel

Tmall Sales Progress on Double 11 2017

• 1 billion yuan: 28 seconds (vs. 52s in 2016)
• 10 billion yuan: 3 mins 1 seconds (vs. 6m 58s in 2016)
• 19.1 bn yuan: 5 mins 57s (exceeds total Double 11 sales in 2012)
• 36.2 bn yuan: 16 mins 10s (exceeds total Double 11 sales in 2013)
• 50 bn yuan: 40 mins 12s (vs. 2 hrs 30m 20s in 2016)
• 57.1 bn yuan: 1 hours 49s (exceeds total Double 11 sales in 2014)
• 91.2 bn yuan: 7 hours 22m 54s (exceeds total Double 11 sales in 2015)
• 100 bn yuan: 9 hours 4s(vs. 18 hrs 55m 36s in 2016)
• 120.7 bn yuan: 13 hours 9m 49s (exceeds total Double 11 sales in 2016)
• 168.2 bn yuan at 24:00

Alibaba Cloud processed 325,000 orders per second at peak. Alipay processed 1.5 billion payment transactions in total, up 41% from 2016, and processed 256,000 transactions per second at peak.

Other E-Commerce Platforms Double 11 Stats 2017

Total orders from 1 Nov till 7:46:58 on 11 Nov exceeded 100 billion yuan on Jingdong (JD). Total transactions on JD during the eleven days’ online sales reached 127.1 billion yuan with over 50% growth.

Netease Kaola total Double 11 sales value reached 4 times as much as last year’s. It reached the total transactions of last year’s Double 11 in the first 28 minutes. Kaola has 25.6% market share in China’s cross-border e-commerce market in Q3 2017 ranking first according to iiMedia.

Total orders on AliExpress exceeded 10 million as of 19:50 on Double 11 2017. It covers 184 countries and regions in the first two hours.

Find out more Singles Day 2017 Insights »

The total sales of smartphones in China reached 35.52 million units in April 2017, led by Huawei with 8.08 million units and 22.8% market share.

The top 10 smartphone brands also include OPPO, Vivo, Apple, Xiaomi, Meizu, Gionee, Samsung, Letv, and Lephone. The top three accounted for over 50% market share in April.

Apple’s market share increased by 0.7% compared with March 2017 to 11.6% in April 2017, ranking the fourth. And, Samsung fell out of the top five in China.

In the “3500-5000 yuan” high-end smartphone market, Huawei’s sales accounted for almost 90% in April 2017 according to a Chinese mobile phone retailer Dixintong.

China smartphone market insights for Q1 2017