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.

US President Donald Trump issued an executive order last week prohibiting US companies from any transaction that is related to WeChat.

Chinese consumers believe that without WeChat, the iPhone will become “expensive e-waste”. Following Trump’s executive order last week, iPhone fans across China are now rethinking their dependence on the iPhone.

More than 1.2 million users on China’s leading social platform Weibo have responded in the poll conducted by Sina Technology, a news media in China, asking users to choose between replacing the smartphone and uninstalling WeChat if WeChat can no longer be used on iPhone.

About 95% of the participants said they would rather change their smartphones than uninstallingWeChat. Trump’s ban will force many Chinese users to switch from iPhones to other brands because WeChat is so important to Chinese users.

With more than 1.2 billion monthly active users, WeChat is one of the most important applications in China. If WeChat is no longer supported, the iPhone will become useless for most Chinese users.

The scope of application of the Trump’s order is unclear. The most important thing is whether it will apply only to the U.S. territory or to the global business transactions of U.S. companies. If it is the latter, Chinese consumers will no longer buy iPhones in the future, resulting in Apple losing 30% of its global sales.

Apple has also warned the White House that Trump’s order will put the company at great risk. Disney, Ford, Intel, Morgan Stanley, UPS and Wal Mart have also informed the White House that U.S. companies may face serious consequences.

WeChat statistical highlights 2020

In the recent “Double 11 2019” shopping festival in China, Apple’s official flagship store on Tmall “Singles Day” transaction exceeded 7 times of last year’s full day sales in just 10 minutes. iPhone 11 broke 100 million yuan in sales in 1 minute.

Related: Double 11 Festival statistics 2019

This year is Apple’s first participation in the Tmall “Double 11” promotion. The official Weibo of the Tmall spokesman said that during this year’s “Double 11”, Apple’s official flagship store participated in the Tmall “Double 11” 2019 platform subsidy, the highest straight off 1,111 yuan (about US$158).

On November 9, Tmall announced an additional budget of 100 million yuan to subsidize Apple’s official products.

On the “Double 11” day, Apple’s official flagship store, including iPhone, iPad, Mac, Airpods and other in-store products, participated in the 24-month interest-free installment payment, iPhone 11 buyers could save 300 yuan after the receipt of the coupon and Airpods Pro 60 yuan off. In this way, Airpods cost less than 3 yuan a day; and, iPhone 11 less than 8 dollars a day.

JD (Jingdong) also introduced a super-billion subsidy (10 billion yuan).

After entering the corresponding interface of JD platform, users could receive corresponding coupons. Among them, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max offered 3,000 for over 8,000 yuan spend, or 1,800 yuan off 3,000 yuan spend.

iPhone 11 Pro / Pro Max offered 500 yuan discount for over 8,000 yuan spend , iPhone 11 300 yuan off 5,000 yuan spend. At the same time, the purchase of some iPhones could enjoy 12-month interest-free installment plan applying JD Credit Coupons.

According to the “Double 11” report data released by Jingdong, Apple’s sales ranked first on November 11th. At the same time, Apple was also the cumulative best-selling brand from November 1st to 11th, followed by Huawei, Honor (Huawei), Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo.

The fast rising social e-commerce platform Pinduoduo also provided heavy subsidies for iPhone buyers.

iPhone demand is strong in China. From a note to clients by UBS:

Monthly government data suggests overall iPhone demand in China was strong in the month of September, up ~230% vs. ~110% monthly growth last September. This is wholly consistent with recent procurement data/estimates from the UBS Asia Hardware team.

In the week ahead of this year’s Double 11 (4 Nov – 10 Nov), iPhone was ranked first by search volume on Baidu in the smartphone category, followed by Huawei and Xiaomi. iPhone’s media coverage was ranked second after Huawei in the same period according to data from Baidu.

In preparation for the “Double 11”, Changshuo Technology, an Apple foundry in Pudong, Shanghai, worked overtime to ensure the “Double 11” supply of the iPhone 11.

The level of marketing and advertisement put into new products by Apple is probably the largest.

In my visits to several tier-2 to tier-3 cities in China, iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and iWatch video ads were all over Chinese digital media across both desktop and mobile. Review articles on WeChat content network (Official Accounts) and Weibo were hard to miss.

Top Mini-Programs in Oct 2019; China’s mini-apps war led by online shopping

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

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

More mobile apps in China have more than 10 million monthly active users in Q1 2017. The number of installed apps and app usage hours both increased compared to a year ago.

70 mobile apps in China each has over 50 million monthly active users in March 2017, an increase of 32% YoY. 157 each has between 10 million and 50 million users with a growth rate of 6.8%.

Monthly time spent on mobile apps totaled 85.57 billion hours in March 2017, up 26.7% from March 2016. Android users’ spent on apps saw faster growth than iPhone users’.

On average, the number of installed mobile apps grows to 17.1 in March 2017 from 15.8 in March 2016.

The younger users spent more time on mobile apps.

In march 2017, mobile users installed an average of 2.5 apps. The younger user group under 25 y-o installed the most, 2.8 apps.

Apple’s App Store is the top mobile app store in China which recorded over 500 million downloads in March 2017, followed by YingYongBao (Tencent’s App Store), Baidu Mobile Assistant, and 360 Mobile Assistant.

Check out the updated e-book “Mobile Trend in China 2017“.

iPhone has the highest retention rate (18.6%) in Q1 2017, followed by Huawei (13.4%). However, Huawei is the top smartphone brand in China by sales (19.2%) in the first quarter of 2017, followed by OPPO (18.7%).

China Smartphone Retention in Q1 2017

Smartphone Sales in China in Q1 2017

Top Android Smartphones

Top iPhone Models in Q1 2017

Related: E-Book: China Mobile Trends 2017

iOS market share dropped to 26.3% in China’s smartphone market from 29.1% in January 2017 according to a research company Newzoo.

iPhone remains the top smartphone brand in China in February 2017 by the number of monthly active devices (26.3%), followed by Huawei (15.6%), Xiaomi (13.8%), OPPO (13.8%), and Vivo (12.1%). Xiaomi AppStore bypassed Baidu Mobile Assistant to be the third Android App Store in China in Feb 2017.

OPPO and Vivo are the top two smartphone brands in Feb 2017 by sales, primarily driven by offline sales. Xiaomi dropped to the sixth with only 3.3% market share in offline sales and 23% in onlinene sales according a Chinese research company Sino.

• OPPO sold 7 million units offline (13.5 billion yuan), 206 thousand units online (460 million yuan)
• Vivo sold 6.17 million units offline (11.1 billion yuan), 187 thousand units online (464 million yuan)
• Xiaomi sold 1.1 million units offline (1.24 billion yuan), 1,896 thousand units online (2,277 million yuan)

Huawei’s HONOR (1.904 million units; 2.6 bn yuan) and Xiaomi (1.896 mn units; 2.28 bn yuan) are the top two best selling smartphone brands in terms of total online sales.

China smartphone shipments were up 9% in Q4 2016 and 12% in 2016 according to Counterpoint. Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo (HOV) emerged as clear winners in 2016.

Oppo, Huawei, vivo, Meizu, and Gionee captured a combined 58% of the total Chinese smartphone market in 2016. Demand for rest of the brands declined, especially Xiaomi and Apple.

Oppo and Vivo were the fastest growing brand and since June 2016 owing to strong omnipresent distribution channels from tier-1 to tier-4 cities across China. Xiaomi slipped to the fourth spot during the year as the demand for its smartphones declined 22% annually.

Best-Selling Smartphone Models Share in 2016

Oppo R9 rose to the best-selling smartphone in China in 2016 breaking Apple’s iPhone dominance streak as the best-seller for the first time since 2012.

Android accounted for 80.7% of urban China smartphone sales in Q4 2016, an increase of 9.3 percentage points year-over-year according to Kantar. iOS made up 19.1% of smartphone sales, down from 27.1% in the same period a year earlier. iPhone 7 remained the top-selling model in the Chinese market in the last quarter of 2016 at 6.8%.

Related: China Smartphone Usage Insights 2016

iOS accounted for 17.1% of smartphone sales in urban China during the three-month period ending in October 2016 due to iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus’ strong performances according to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

iPhone 7 was the second best-selling phone in urban China in the period, capturing 3.8% of all smartphone sales. iPhone 7 Plus also cracked the top 10 at 1.9%… Oppo continues to gain footing in urban China, achieving 11.8% of smartphone sales, with the R9 remaining the top selling device in the region.

said Tamsin Timpson, Strategic Insight Director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Asia.

Huawei, Oppo and BBK Communication Equipment together accounted for 21% of the smartphones sold to end users worldwide in Q3 2016. Check out the top 20 smartphone models in China in Q3 2016 here.

Over 60% China smartphone users would not buy iPhone 7 according to a survey by Penguin Intelligence (part of Tencent).

70.9% Chinese male respondents said they would not buy iPhone 7 compared with 61.3% female respondents. After Apple’s 7 Sep event, over 25% smartphone users changed their decision, among which 20.2% gave up the purchase intention.

The main reason of not getting iPhone 7 is the demand (31%), followed by dissatisfaction in the upgrade (21.5%), pricing (13.6%), and quality (2.8%).

Huawei (38.3%) is the top choice for the next smartphone; and, the next version of iPhone came second (18%), followed by Oppo (10.1%).

The survey also found that among the iPhone 7 fans, large screen, longer battery life, and better camera lens are the top factors for purchase. And, over half users tend to buy 128G ones.

iPhone 7’s jet black is the top choice for male fans (62.2%); and, rose gold is the female’s favorite (51.2%).

Read more: China smartphone market insights 2016

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.

In the second quarter of 2016, iOS continued to post year-over-year declines in urban China: 17.9% of smartphone sales in the period were iOS, a drop of 1.8 percentage points from 19.7% in the second quarter of 2015 according to Kantar.

iOS share decline has also pushed Apple behind Huawei (25.7%) and Xiaomi (18.5%) facing increased competitors from local smartphone models such as Huawei’s Mate 8, P9, Xiaomi’s RedMi Note 3 and Mi 5, and Oppo’s R9. iPhone SE only accounts for 2.5% of smartphone sales in Q2 2016.

Related: China Android App Stores Insights Q1 2016

iPhone only had 8.2% domestic smartphone market share by total shipments in April 2016 according to Sino Market Research.

Over one-third of China smartphone users would replace smartphones for new ones at least once a year; over three-quarters of Chinese would do so every two years according to a Tencent survey. If an iPhone user is to replace his phone with an Android phone, Huawei is the top choice.

Penguin Intelligence, part of Tencent, recently conducted a survey on iPhone losing users in China.

Over one-third of China smartphone users would replace smartphones for new ones at least once a year; over three-quarters of Chinese would do so every two years according to the survey.

If an iPhone user is to replace his phone with an Android phone, Huawei is the top choice.

iOS operating system is the most addictive feature of iPhone.

Nearly half of iPhone users are a bit worried that iPhone will be surpassed by Android phones.

Post-90s generation in China relies more on performance data and professional reviews while choosing a smartphone, compared with post-70s and post-90s.

Despite the continuous weak growth and even decline in smartphone sales in China, major domestic mobile phone manufacturers still set a “big leap” of shipping target in H1 2015. Although foreign brands iPhone and Samsung still held a large market share, domestic brands as Huawei, Lenovo, Xiaomi and TCL etc. all set their phone sales volume at 100 million units.

In Q2 2015, Xiaomi was the top smartphone vendor in China by total shipments volume of 15.9%, followed by Huawei (15.7%). Apple ranked third, followed by Samsung and Vivo.

China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, the three Chinese telecommunications companies accounted for 90% of the market.

4G network penetrated quickly into Chinese people’s life while users accessing to the internet through Wi-Fi accounted for 52%, mainly because of the high data charges of 4G network.

25% China mobile internet users on average opened less than 5 apps per day while over 60% would use less than 10 apps. Only 2.9% users would open more than 20 apps in one day. Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu still led China’s mobile internet market.

Among the top 20 mobile apps by total number of monthly average users, seven apps were from by Tencent. And among all the mobile apps in China in July 2015, WeChat and QQ ranked first with the monthly average users of 556.48 million and 424.28 million respectively.

WeChat and QQ were the social communication platforms with the highest penetration rate. Among the usage of the top 20 apps, users spent about 27% of the total apps usage time on WeChat and QQ. Search engine, video, and music player apps were also popular among mobile internet users.

Tencent held a strong position in the mobile social platform. Mobile internet users spent more time on WeChat compared with QQ; however among the post-00s, QQ was the major communication tool.

In the mobile video player market, Tencent, iQIYI and Youku led the market, with fierce competition and little gap of MAU (monthly active users) and total usage.

In the mobile music player market, Kugou music undoubtedly took the lead, followed by QQ Music and Kuwo Music.

Tencent News enjoyed a large share in China’s news apps market while Toutiao was in the process of fast penetration. Toutiao and Tencent News were quite close in total usage time. The daily usage of Toutiao was even twice that of Tencent News .

Offers from China online travel providers such as Ctrip and Qunar have extended to provide more on “things to do” in travel destinations. China online travel providers have also expanded to provide lifestyle offers such as food delivery, movie ticketing and car renting. In H1 2015, Ctrip and Qunar continued the growth momentum, which contributed to the tourism market of China.

Resulting from the convenience of online banking and online payment, mobile online banking apps developed quickly. China Construction Bank ranked first with monthly average usage of 2.32%.

China became the largest e-commerce market since 2014. About 53% users were women in 2015. Taobao held an unaltered position in the online e-commerce market, followed by JD and Vipshop.

In the mother care market, Beibei ranked first with an overwhelming advantage, whose monthly average usage was more the sum of other four apps.

Competition was fierce in the  cross-border hopping market, and Red ranked first in H1 2015 with a market share of 0.19%.

Meituan still ranked top on the group-buying apps in H1 2015, followed by Dianping and Nuomi while Ele continued to compete and was expected to be competitive to Meituan in the monthly average usage.

Meituan and Ele dominate the food delivery market. Ele led the market in Beijing and Shanghai while Meituan held an obvious advantage in other cities. Beijing made up of nearly 10% of the total food delivery share.

Car calling market was basically shared by Didi, Kuaidi and Uber. Although Uber China made much effort in the localization of Uber, the number of daily average users was only one third that of Didi Cars/Kuaidi One.

WeChat payment has gradually been adopted by more users. Many apps supported payments by WeChat. Didi and Meituan were first two apps that used WeChat payment as the primary payment method.

Also read: China Top 100 Mobile Apps in July 2015

China is increasingly important for Apple. In this third quarter of 2015, Apple sold 47.53 million sets of iPhone; iPhone brought US$31.4 billion revenue for Apple, more than 60% of total revenue. Apple needs to understand the real preferences of Chinese consumers to clearly get how to sell more iPhones.

On Sep 9 2015, Apple announced iPhones 6s; on Sep 12, iPhone 6s begin to accept pre-orders in China; and on Sep 25, iPhone 6s is available in China. As of Sep 30 2015, iPhone 6s sales reached 13 million according to Apple; and China market accounts for 30%.

Tencent conducted a research which reveals some insights on iPhone 6s purchase intentions in China. About 60% users will not buy the old iPhones even if the price was reduced after the new model is released. Only 19.3% respondents will buy old models.

Women are more fond of the new and tired of the old. Up to 60.9% of women will not buy old fashioned iPhone in China.

About 38.5% of informants are certain to buy iPhone 6s in the future, and 32.2% are staying on the sidelines; however, these may be the future backbone of Apple’s long development.

Over 40% of women indicate that they will buy iPhone 6s while men determine to buy only 36.1%.

Two major factors for not buying iPhone 6s are “no need for changing new sets” (30.0%) and “lack of money” (28.9%). The primary reason that women do not buy is lack of money, and the primary reason for men is that no replacement demand for new sets.

Large storage version of 64G handsets are attracting more iPhone fans in China. As high as 71.7% respondents choose 64G if they buy iPhones 6s in the future. Only 18.5% hope to buy storage version of 16G.

Men are less tolerable at low storage capacity. Only 16.7% men may buy 16G version while women 20.5%.

Apple buyers in China tend to have more consciousness towards legitimate and original handsets. 68.2% will buy in Apple official website and retail stores, 10.4% in business hall of smartphones. More women buy iPhone 6s in Apple official site and retail stores compared with men.

Also read: China Smartphone Shipments 2015: Only 1.2% Growth

In Q2 2015, Xiaomi was the top smartphone vendor in China by shipments volume of 15.9%, followed by Huawei (15.7%). Apple ranked third, followed by Samsung and Vivo. The rapid development of Xiaomi has shocked the smartphone market after it was founded five years ago. The company’s posted sales growth slowed down which prompted many people wondering whether Xiaomi could achieve its ambitious expansion plan.

So far, Xiaomi and Huawei have been two most famous Chinese mobile phone brands with a large market share in China. 15 out of 100 Chinese internet users would have a Xiaomi smartphone.

In terms of future potential purchase of Xiaomi smartphone, 18% of Chinese internet users would consider. Some Asian markets also had purchase intention. However, in most countries, Xiaomi is still not as popular as Samsung or iPhone who had already established their brands in the global market. Xiaomi still had room for development, but it might not enjoy high growth rates as it did before.

Also read: China E-Payment Insights 2015

The top three smartphone vendors in March 2015 are Huawei (13.57%), Apple (12.37%) and Samsung (10.15%) according to GfK research.

Samsung’s market share continues to decrease during the past six months while Huawei exceeded Apple to be on top in March 2015.f

The total iPhone sales in China reached 18.923 billion yuan, followed by Samsung (7.217 billion yuan) and Huawei (6.535 billion yuan).

iPhone continues to dominate market of smartphones priced over 4,000 yuan. In 3000 and 4000 yuan category as shown above, Apple’s market share increased from 16% to 22% while Samsung’s dropped from 50% to 25%.

Read more: Weibo Smartphone User Insights in 2014

Apple’s revenues in China were US$27 billion in 2014. According to Newzoo’s report, Apple has been the top technology brand in China by revenues, which is twice bigger than Huawei (US$17.5 billion) and Lenovo (US$14.7 billion), and nearly three times than Tencent in 2014.

According to Newzoo’s research, Chinese consumers tend to favor expensive mobile phones like iPhone 5s, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. In China, Apple is not only a technology brand but also their desire for power and status. Total iPhone 6 order exceeded 4 million in 3 days before its official launch in China market.

Compared with Apple’s performance in China, Microsoft’s revenue was less than US$8.6 billion which represented less than 10% of total revenue globally. Besides, Sony’s revenue in China was US$4.4 billion in 2014.

Also read: Every One in Every Four Smartphones Sold in China is iPhone

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

iPhone6 and iPhone6 Plus finally got network access license from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on 30 September in 2014. Apple also announced that new iPhones will be available for consumers to buy in mainland China on 17 Oct 2014.

In addition to Apple online and retail store, iPhones’ selling channels have been extended. Three operators including China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, now all provide ordering service. Total orders exceeded 4 million through channels like three telco operators and virtual operators such as Suning, D.Phone, Jingdong and others.

Announcement on China Mobile’s official website now is written: “Users can book iPhone 6 & iPhone 6 Plus on www.10086.cn, 10086 web portal, Wechat platform, JD and by dialing 10085.

China Unicom and China Telecom both provide iPhone 6 and Plus with all netcom version. However, they do not provide bare iPhones booking now.

Within 6 hours in China, three operators received over 1 million bookings and bookings for 64GB version are much more than other ones.

iPhone 6 and Plus orders on JD.com needs users provide their real names, e-mail address and telephone numbers to be informed of available time. Virtual operator, Suning also made promotion for new iPhones orders.

In China, need for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus is much higher than before. It’s really a pleasure for Chinese to experience new iPhones and a potentially huge sales success in China for Apple.

Samsung leads China’s smartphone market (23%) by total sales volume, followed by Xiaomi (21%) and iPhone (16%) during a five-month period ended in May 2014, reported by Kantar Worldpanel:

The number of Smartphone users in China has exceeded 556 million by June 2014 in China, an increase of 4.5% from the prior quarter; more on China mobile market in H1 here.

Also read: Huawei, Lenovo the World’s 3rd and 4th Largest Smartphone Vendor in Q2 2014

The report shows that 70% of Xiaomi buyers were smartphone users prior to purchasing Xiaomi, among which 20% are already Xiaomi users from Jan to May 2014. Among Xiaomi mobile phone buyers, less than 5% gave up iPhone. But Xiaomi phones have much more impact on other smartphone sales.

Among new Xiaomi phone buyers, 17% were Samsung users, 21% from domestic brands (Huawei, Lenovo, Oppo, ZTE, and Coolpad), and 18% were Nokia users.

Xiaomi sold 18.7 million mobile phones in 2013 out of 42.8 million units total sales in China. It held annual products conference in Beijing last week and released its latest smartphone Mi4.

The same report indicates that the top three smartphone features used in China are music, photo taking, and gaming.

The pattern of brand awareness of China smartphone market changed a lot in January 2014. Judging by competition situation, smartphone market was gradually entering an era of red ocean; however, as for development prospect, the need of smartphone users was far from being satisfied. Domestic and foreign smartphone vendors were all devoted to meeting users’ different demands of experience. Differentiation became the top priority of mobile manufacturers.

Brand Awareness

On the whole, the competition of brand awareness in China smartphone market was getting more intensely. The accumulative awareness of top 15 brand fell down, representing the lower concentration. Specifically, Samsung topped the ranking with a 20.8% awareness, followed by Apple and Huawei. Awareness of Lenovo was close to Nokia’s, merely 0.4% higher. Coolpad got the sixth place with a 5.6% awareness. The awareness of other brands on the ranking list were all below 5%.

Compared to December 2013, great changes had taken place in just one month. For top 3, Huawei’s awareness rose 2.1 percentage point to the No.3, boosted by new products Honor 3C, 3X and A199. Coolpad also rose 1% with the help of new awesome product, up one rank to seven.

Product Awareness

Apple iPhone 5S (16GB) was still far ahead of other product with a 4.0% awareness. Meanwhile, Apple iPhone 5, iPhone 4S and iPhone 5C were also on the list, making Apple the listed brand with  most products.

The second was Samsung with three products on the list in January. Samsung GALAXY Note 3 (N9006/single SIM card/16GB) ranked the second with 3.0%. GALAXY S4 and GALAXY Note 2 ranked No.4 and No.13 respectively.

It is noteworthy that the newly marketed Huawei Honor 3C (1 GB RAM/China Mobile version) made the top 3 place with a 2.7% awareness, the highest awareness among domestic smartphones. And Meizu MX3 (non-NFC/16GB/Ordinary) ranked No.5.

In terms of price, mid-end phones bwteen 1,000-2,000 Yuan (USD 163 to 326) were still the focus, with awareness of 27.5%. Followed by products of 3,001-4,000 Yuan (USD 490 to 653), its awareness was above 20% too. The awareness of products below 1,000 Yuan (USD 163) and 2,001-3,000 Yuan (USD 326 to 490) were both close to 20%. High-end smartphones over 4,000 Yuan (USD 653) reached 13.9% brand awareness.

For operating system, Android was in the unshakable mainstream position as before, with a awareness of 80.2%. The awareness of Apple iOS was 11.9%, followed by slow growing Windows phone of 7.0%. Other OS shrunk in this month.

For numbers of CPU cores, the position of quad-core phones was more stable. In January quad-core smartphone won 55.5% awareness, followed by dual-core with over 30%. Eight-core/two quad-core phones had low awareness so far. ZDC predicted that awareness of eight-core phones wouldn’t increase rapidly in short term, as a consequence of high price and low experience improvement.

According to ZDC, smartphones with 4.6-5.0 inch screen were the most popular device, getting a 33.9% awareness. The awareness of 4.1-4.5 inch and 3.6-4.0 inch were very close: 16.3% and 16.5%. Note that smartphones with screen bigger than 5.5 inch had awareness of 15.4% this month.

Among more than 1,000 smartphones on the market, two cameras became the standard. For main camera – the rear camera, phones with 8-8.7 megapixel camera were the mainstream, with a 43.5% awareness. It’s remarkable that awareness of smartphones with over 10 megapixel camera grew fast, reaching 34.5% in January.

In terms of battery capacity, smartphone with 2,000-3,000 mAh battery was favored with a 48.9% awareness, almost the half. The second was below 2,000 mAh battery, with awareness of 32.5%. Affected by high price, smartphones with over 3,000 mAh battery was unpopular so far.

Case Study: Huawei

As ZDC data showed, the awareness of Huawei rocketed to 8.5% in a month, 2.1 points higher compared to December 2013. Huawei beat Nokia and Lenovo to become top 3 in January 2014. ZDC attributed this amazing performance to the increasing awareness of 3C, 3X and A199.

Huawei had 56 products on the market at present, mostly equipped with 4.5 inch or 5.0 inch screen. Each size accounted for over 20%. Huawei’s product with 5.0 inch screen was the most popular, with a 52.4% awareness. The awareness of products with 4.5 inch or 4.7 inch screen were both below 20%.

Conclusion

In January 2014, the strength of domestic brands in smartphone market was enhanced. At the same time, competition between domestic phone manufacturers was heating up. Under the market environment of homogenization, the more creative you are, the longer you will stand.

In November 2013, according to ZDC report, Chinese smartphone market brand awareness basically didn’t change. iPhone 5S ranked the top in product awareness, LG Nexus 5 gained product awareness rapidly and soon ranked in top 10 list. On the whole, the competition grew more intense in smartphone market, especially in android OS market.

Brand Awareness

Samsung ranked top in brand awareness ranking in November with 21.8%, Apple ranked the second with 12.6%. Lenovo remained in the third place with 7.8%. Compared to October, the top 7 brands kept stable, Samsung, Lenovo, Nokia and HTC went up a little while Apple dropped 0.2%. Huawei and Sony Ericsson remained the same with October. LG increased by five places in November because of LG Nexus 5 (16GB). Motorola and Vivo both increased by one place in the rank, while Xiaomi suffered the biggest drop in November.

Product Awareness

iPhone 5S gained 4.2% product awareness in November, ranking the top. Two Samsung smartphones ranked the second and third on the list. On the top 15 smartphones list, Apple was the biggest winner with four smartphones. Samsung had three smartphones on the top 15 list.

Chinese smartphone manufacturers together had 3 smartphones on the list, decreasing 1 compared to October. MX3 ranked the fourth, OPPO N1 and Vivo X3 ranked the 12th and 15th.

The top 15 smartphones were mainly quad-core phones, and 11 out of 15 had 4.5 inches screen size. 14 smartphones installed 8 million and above pixels camera.

Smartphones between 1,000 to 2,000 yuan (USD 163 to 327) gained the highest awareness of 24.4% in November 2013. Price range between 2,001 to 3,000 yuan (USD 327 to 490) awareness hit 20% in November, increasing about 2% monthly. Smartphones between 3,001 to 4,000 yuan (USD 490 to 654) had the largest increase of 6.3%, reaching 18.4%.

ZDC data showed that in November, the number of quad-core smartphones broke 400, gained 52.3% awareness. Single-core and dual-core smartphones’ awareness dropped slightly.

Smartphones with 12 million and above pixels’ awareness kept growing, reaching 28.5%. The rest all dropped in November.

Android’s awareness remained the same, iOS dropped by 0.2%. Notably, Windows Phone’s brand awareness increased by 0.7% to 7.7% in November 2013.

Smartphones with 5 inches and above screen size gained more awareness in November 2013, hitting 24.4%. 4.6-5.0 inches screen size had the highest awareness of 33.4%.

Case Study

In 2013, from January to November, LG brand awareness fluctuated between 2.3% to 2.8%, and the rank remained as 14 or 15. But because of new product LG Nexus 5 entering market in November, LG brand awareness went up to 4.3% and its rank improved to the eighth dramatically.

ZDC data showed that LG had 15 smartphones in the market, and LG Nexus 5 was the newest product and the official Android OS smartphone. From November 1 to 30, LG Nexus 5 brand awareness increased rapidly and remained high since 15th.

According to Counterpoint smartphone market research in October 2013, iPhone 5S became the bestselling smartphone globally. Meanwhile, Apple had occupied one fourths of China smartphone market and its cooperation with China Mobile was about to begin. In October 2013, Apple rose to the third place in China smartphone market, behind Samsung and Lenovo.

iPhone 5S though did not cause long waiting lines outside Apple stores like iPhone 4S, it was more successful than iPhone 5. Apple’s cooperation with China Mobile meant that Apple achieved cooperation with all three big China telecom enterprises. Apple would very likely to rank the first in China smartphone market in December 2013, or January in 2014.

China Mobile announced that there would be 10 million to 40 million iPhone sold through China Mobile in 2014.

Tuhao has been a hot word all over the media, it represents rich Chinese who love to show off their wealth on internet while claiming to be poor.

According to an article from Sydney Morning Herald, China’s vulgar rich: befriended but unloved, a crowdsourced translation call on China’s social media yielded “new money,” “slumdog millionaire,” the “riChinese” and “billionbilly.” When English falls short, French is on hand to help: Tuhao have the artistic sensibilities of the arriviste, the social grace of the parvenu, and the spending habits of the nouveau riche.

Tuhao is referred over 56 million times on Sina Weibo, everybody wants to be friends with tuhao, but nobody really likes them. They have caused attention of many foreign media, BBC made a special program about Chinese tuhao.

The popularity of tuhao began early in September, Sina Weibo started an acitivity “Let’s be friends with tuhao”. It’s similar to diaosi, which is a kind of insult of poor and unattractive young man who are struggling for life in cities in the beginning. Then it raged all over online, all of sudden, many young people self-deprecated themselves as diaosi. Diaosi, or “be friends with tuhao”, separate common people with rich class in China.

The most famous Chinese tuhao is a woman from Anhu province in early October 2013. Chinese media reported an anonymous woman gave 4 million yuan (USD 652,193) worth Bentley to her son-in-law as wedding gift. Whether the story is true or not, we could not know. But it was a sensation across internet, arousing mixed feelings with mock, envy, jealousy and hatred. Another father in Liaoning province, bought a kindergarten for his 4-year-old daughter to offer her a nice education environment. He said it was a nice kindergarten in many aspects after he searched for a long time and quite cheap, it merely cost him 10 million yuan (USD 16.03 million).

On September 20, 2013, Apple launched a new golden iPhone 5S, it was quite popular and soon sold out in China. The official price for golden iPhone 5s is 5,288 yuan (USD 862), in China, golden iPhone 5S price is above 8,800 yuan (USD 1,435).

On September 22, 2013, Chinese richest man Wang Jianlin celebrated his new Chinese Hollywood in Qingdao with top Hollywood stars, such as Nicole Kidman and Leonardo DiCaprio. Wang Jianlin, founder of Dalian Wanda Group, invested 30 billion yuan (USD 4.89 billion) in Qingdao film and entertainment industry park.

A research done by A.T.Kearney in October 2013 showed that 2% Chinese consumed one third of global luxury brands.

Tuhao is just another online word for Chinese rich people, especially for those who became rich quickly. Common people have different attitudes towards tuhao, they laughed at them, mocking their tastes, at the same time, they want to be friends with tuhao. The gap between the rich and poor has deepened, a part of Chinese became rich during the early stage of China reform and opening-up policy. Rich people live a luxury life while most of Chinese young people are struggling for life, they could only make their life less miserable by calling the rich tuhao.

2013 Forbes’ China Rich List collected 168 billionaires, much more than last year’s 113 billionaires. The total wealth of top 400 Chinese rich people mounted to 3.475 trillion yuan (USD 567 billion).

Since the launch of iPhone 5S/5C, according to Canalys, Apple surpassed Chinese manufacturers ZTE and MIUI to rank the fifth in China smartphone market in Q3 2013.

Nicole Peng, Research Director of Canalys China, said that in Q3, iPhone shipment increased by 32% quarterly, the total market share reached 6%.

However, Apple’s competitor Samsung’s shipment increased more than 100%, and its market share reached 21% in China. iPhone’s new 5S and 5C were launched on September 20, so the statistics in Q3 could not completely reflect Apple’s market performance.

Lenovo ranked the second with 13% in Q3 2013, followed by Coolpad with 11%. Huawei ranked the fourth with 9% market share. ZTE dropped to the seventh with 5%.

According to a research by Umeng, a localized Chinese mobile app analysis group offering analytical tools and services to app developers, active android devices in September didn’t change too much. Top 10 devices were all from Samsung and MIUI.

Total top 12 active android devices occupied 19.234% of the total in September 2013. Besides, the top 3 fastest growing devices in September were Huawei C8815, OPPO R823T, Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8.

And the active iOS devices are shown above. iPhone 4 ranked top with 28.5%.

According to ZDC report, Samsung occupied 21% market share of brands awareness, ranking the first in September 2013. Followed by Apple, with 14% share. Lenovo ranked the third, a little ahead of Nokia. 

Compared to August, Apple had a big growth, hitting 14%. Samsung, Nokia and Lenovo’s brands awareness all dropped in comparison with August.

Different price ranges had different brand awareness. Affected by Apple and Samsung’s high price smartphones, smartphone brands awareness above 3000 yuan (USD 490) reached 31.9%, 6.4% more than that of August. Brands awareness of  below 3000 yuan smartphones all dropped slightly.

In September, Android smartphones got a dominantly 78% brands awareness, but dropped a little in comparison with last month. iOS’s brands awareness increased to 14%, which led to the drop of android system’s brands awareness.

From the perspective of camera resolution, smartphones with 8/8.1 million pixels and 12 million and above pixels’ brands awareness kept going up, gained 51.9% and 24.2% in September.

In September, quad-core smartphones obtained most brands awareness, with 46.3%, decreasing 1.2% compared to August. Dual-core and eight-core smartphones brands awareness increased a little.

Large screen smartphones’ brands awareness remained fast growing rate. Though screen size between 4.6-5.0 inches had the highest share of 33.8% in September, it decreased by 2.8% compared with last month. However, 5.0 inches and above smartphones went up by 4.5%, reaching 17.2% in September. Besides, due to the launch of iPhone 5S and 5C with 4.0 inches screen size, 3.6-4.0 inches screen smartphone’s brands awareness grew by 4%.

According to Localytics report on iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C. Within 72 hours of launch, more than 91% Chinese apple fans purchased iPhone 5S. One explanation is that iPhone 5S has the gold color version, iPhone 5C doesn’t.

Besides, it also found out that the United Kingdom had the closest purchasing percentage. iPhone 5S vs iPhone 5C nearly reached 3 to 1. It seemed that British consumers were more sensitive to the price.

According to a survey done by Tencent, participated by more than 46,000 people by the end of September 10 2013. This survey is to investigate the popularity of iPhone 5S and 5C in Chinese users.

50% users chose iPhone 5S, 22% chose iPhone 5C. And 21% said they didn’t want either one. 7% said they didn’t know which one to choose.

Another survey showed that Chinese smartphone users acceptable price ranges from USD 400-500. As for iPhone 5C, the best price should be 3000 yuan (USD 486).

Apple announced on September 11 2013, the iPhone 5S will be sold at the price of 5,288 yuan (USD 858), and iPhone 5C’s price is 4,488 (USD 728). The price of iPhone 5C is quite a disappointment for Chinese consumers. iPhone 5C market in China is not optimistic.

Kantar Worldpanel ComTech report showed that mobile manufacturers launched a series of big screen smartphones in the past 12 months. Samsung Galaxy and Note, HTC One, Huawei, Lenovo and Xiaomi all launched 4-inch smartphone. By the end of June, more than half of smartphone users owned 3 to 3.9 inches smartphones, but 4-4.5 inches smartphones market share was twice of last year, growing from 12.5% to 29.1%. Big screen smartphone might become the market dominant.

In Q2, Android smartphones market share by sales volume dropped to 67.8%, with a QoQ decrease of 4.1%. Windows phone market share by sales volume  increased from 1.8% in Q1 to 4.9% in Q2. iPhone occupied about 25% market share by sales volume.

By the end of June 2013, Android dominated smartphone with 56% market share, with 41% increase compared to last year. Symbian was the biggest loser, with only 20.3% market share and 14.3% less than last year. According to Kantar Worldpanel, if iphone launch cheaper smartphones, it will probably become the second largest mobile operating system.

iPhone 4 and 4s market share by sales volume reached 58.2%, while iPhone 5 only occupied one third of iPhone total sales.

Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty did a survey of Chinese consumers how much they are willing to pay for a new iPhone. She found that people were willing to pay $486 (RMB 4,000)  for the iPhone 5C.

The above was her chart showing the prices of Chinese consumers believe to be fair; and, they’re willing to pay $486, 22% higher than the estimated price of $399.

via BusinessInsider.com

According to TNS, UC mobile leads mobile app facetime but is closely followed by Mobile QQ, WeChat and Weibo.

The top five smartphone apps in China were dominated by social networking and communication related apps.

For 2012 Q2, tools, FMCG and e-commerce are the top 3 categories of advertisers advertising on mobile apps. As more and more advertisers in FMCG, automobile and games step onto this channel, advertisers of content publishers and games are more eager. Mobile app ad revenue reaches 1.06 billion yuan (USD 169 million) in total.

Domob daily average advertisement PV and UV grow steadily

Q2, domob daily average advertisement PV is up to 0.36 billion and the number of daily UV reaches 18 million.

Android and iOS remain as front runners with 60% and 40% of impressions.

Comparing with Q1, Domob advertising impression on Android grows rapidly. The proportion of impression on Android and iOS devices is 60%, 40%; and impressions of other systems continually decrease.

Tools, E-Commerce and FMCG are the Top3 Advertisers

In the second quarter, advertisers of tools, e-commerce and FMCG fill out the top ranks on Domob, accounting for 55%. As for the CTR comparison, Games advertisement gets 1.87% CTR, outclassing other industries.

FMCG, automobile, and games have a steady lift in ad delivery on Domob.

In Q2, the number of e-commerce advertisers decreases. The main reason is its slow YoY growth in transactions. And some e-commerce clients reduce Smartphone advertisement delivery, resulting in the decrease of the ad delivery proportion. On the other hand, games advertisers increase their ad delivery proportion rapidly. Moreover, FMCG and Automobile advertisers have a lift in the branding advertisement.

Advertisers of Content Publisher and Games More Willing to Invest

Content publishers, games and online video have the highest Ad delivery. CTRs of digital content and games stay on the leading position. According to iResearch analysis, among all current apps, digital content and games both belong to the categories of which users are willing to stay a long time.

The Revenue of China Mobile App Ad Platform Keeps Increasing Rapidly

In the second quarter of 2012, China Mobile App ad platform’s revenue is 1.06 billion yuan, up by 135.6% compared with that in 2011. The performance mainly comes from the growth of impressions, advertisers and average ad input. Under the influence of macro-economy, the bursting point of Mobile App advertising will delay to 2013.