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

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 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.

There are some new “situations” in this year’s 618 festival.

On the one hand, 618 has become an important opportunity for online shopping of high value and large commodities; on the other hand, it’s also a good time for families to stock up, including the sales of home appliances, 3C, food, beauty products, and etc, which will reach the peak in the first half of the year during 618.

At the same time, many big brands lead the promotion activities, and the promotion discounts also attract many new consumers.

Smart and high-quality differentiated products have become the hot spots trends in the field of home appliances, driven by promotions from both home appliance brands and major e-commerce platforms.

Get an introduction of 618 Shopping Festival here.

80% of the enterprises, surveyed by Chinese media Yibang, participated in Tmall 618, more than half of them invested more than 30% of the 618 budget in Tmall, and 40% of the enterprises surveyed expected that more than half of the 618 sales would come from Tmall.

50% of the enterprises interviewed said that in the past year, Tmall had the highest conversion among all platforms.

CIW Dossier: 618 Shopping Festival provides a perspective of the merchants regarding the performance, advertising budget, and sales expectations on the top e-commerce platforms for 618 shopping festival.

Update (21 June 2021): During this year’s “618” (June 1-20), the State Post Bureau observed more than 6.59 billion pieces of parcels, a year-on-year increase of 24.24%, and an increase of 84.16% compared with the same period in 2019.

China’s total 618 sales in 2021 reached 578.48 billion yuan, an increase of 26.5% YoY, according to data from Syntun. Top 3 channels by total sales are Tmall, JD, and Pinduoduo. Download CIW Dossier: 618 Shopping Festival to get more sales insights.

Alibaba Tmall 618

Over 67% consider Tmall as the top platform for 618.

Among the enterprises surveyed, 51% invested more than 30% of their budgets in tmall. Among them, 10.6% of enterprises allocate more than 80% of the ad budget on the Tmall platform; most allocate 30% to 50% of their total 618 budget on Tmall.

Tmall is giving away RMB10 billion (US$1.57 billion) in consumer coupons and subsidies to help further stimulate post-Covid consumption during Tmall 618 Festival 2021.

According to the official introduction of Tmall, huge discounts will be launched from June 1 to June 20. The specific activities are as follows:

• 20 yuan off every 300 yuan purchase with a total subsidy of 10 billion yuan
• 88vip members will receive additional 520 yuan
• Beauty products at flagship stores are cheaper than duty-free stores

A total of 250,000 brands participate in this year’s Tmall 618, which is 2.5 times that of last year. A total of 13 million products participate in offering discounts, of which 1.4 million are new products.

Tmall merchants almost all started the official live streaming for this year’s 618 shopping festival. About 100 celebrities have locked in Taobao Live to interact with fans. More than 500 CEOs have already made time for Tmall 618 in the agenda to face consumers and offer more brand discounts.

For more established brands, this year’s 618 festival is all about membership engagement. Shoppers who have signed up their favorite brands’ membership on Tmall can expect more additional benefits.

Tmall 618 sales

Millions of loyalty-program members on Tmall helped drive sales for 25 brands, which had each exceeded RMB100 million in transactions on June 1.

As of June 16, brand merchants have acquired nearly 60 million new members during Tmall 618, and some saw more than 50% of the transactions come from members. On June 1 alone, the first day of Tmall 618, there were 25 brands with a turnover of over 100 million yuan from members.

Since the beginning of this year, Tmall has strengthened its membership operation. The exclusive rights and benefits of brand members will be revealed many times in the search results and commodity display pagse, and various tools such as exclusive rights and benefits of members and member interaction are also provided for merchants.

About 20 brand merchants exceeded 10 million member milestone on Tmall. Alibaba didn’t disclose detailed sales value this year.

Tmall Hey Box: Alibaba’s best seller incubator for top brands

JD.com 618

Jingdong announced it will focus on live streaming, short videos, graphics, and quiz to enrich its content marketing for the ongoing 618 Grand Promotion at a kick-off event on May 20 in Beijing.

JD.com will invite more than 300 celebrities, and executives from nearly 600 brand partners to participate in various promotions through live streaming during the promotion.

The company will also invite KOLs and celebrities to create short videos to assist promotion. More than 1,000 professional buyers or KOLs from different categories will be invited to share their favorite products to drive more traffic to JD.com.

JD will hold two galas through live streaming inviting celebrities to bring consumers the festive atmosphere of 618. Leveraging JD and WeChat’s strength, JD will offer live streaming through 10 WeChat accounts.

Over 30,000 new brands and stores were launched during 618 on JD Super, JD’s online supermarket, with over 2.4 million new products.

Shoppers in Nanjing, Jiangsu province are the most active, taking the crown for the largest order volume.

Group buying is most used in Harbin. The average amount per group buy order in the chilly capital of Heilongjiang province in Northeast China this year exceeds RMB 1,000 yuan.

Other top competitors for 618 include Kuaishou, Douyin (TikTok), Pinduoduo, and Meituan.

JD & Douyin (TikTok)

JD signed a 20 billion yuan collaboration agreement with Douyin (TikTok). And, JD’s products are integrated on Douyin in this year’s 618 festival and users can buy JD products on Douyin directly without being redirected to an external page.

JD 618 Sales

In the first three minutes on Jun. 18, JD Super, JD’s online supermarket, saw sales increase 10 times, and in the first two minutes, packaged foods exceeded RMB 300 million yuan while the maternal and baby category exceeded RMB 200 million yuan.

In the first hour on Jun. 18, JD Fresh saw sales increase 70% YOY. Looking at sub-categories, seafood, meat, eggs and poultry, and fruit and vegetables increased 160%, 105% and 80% respectively. Sales of food which require little effort to prepare increased 160%.

JD.com reported a total transaction of over RMB 343.8 billion yuan for its 18-day 618 shopping festival 2021, representing a growth of 27.7% YoY from the same period in 2020 (RMB 269.2 billion yuan).

The pet category has boomed. Post-90s consumers spent an average of RMB 507 yuan per month on pet products in 2021. During 618, smart pet products increased 47% YOY.

Luxury products. Sales of Ferragamo, TOD’s, and BALLY increased 150%, 232% and 600% respectively. In addition, over 20 designer brands saw sales increase over 15 times YoY on JD platform. Consumers continue to embrace the convenience of buying luxury products online.

Sales of imported gaming phones on JD Worldwide increased by nearly three times. Imported dry cat food increased by 108%.

During the 18-day promotion, sales of JD’s online real estate business increased 230% YOY. Sales of housekeeping and cleaning services increased 6.3 times while the order number of car maintenance increased 285%.

Genetic testing service sales increased 23 times, making it the fastest-growing category of healthcare services on Jingdong. Oral health product sales increased 447%.

The top five international brands are Aptamil from Germany, Estee Lauder from the U.S., A2 from Australia, Nintendo from Japan, and Sulwhasoo from Korea. In the fresh food category, 5 million Zespri kiwis and 260,000 durians from Thailand were sold during the 18-day sale.

Social e-commerce Pinduoduo’s road to brand upgrade

618 Sales performance of other brands and platforms

Xiaomi 618

From June 1 to 18, the total GMV across all Xiaomi’s platforms exceeded 19 billion yuan (US$29.37 bn), with a year-on-year growth of 90%.

Its sales volume of smartphones ranked first among all Android phones, the TV category won first place in the sales volume / sales values. Xiaomi 11 Pro is the best selling model on both JD and Tmall.

Xiaomi’s offline sales channels saw 123% YoY increase in total transaction values. Live streaming delivered 1.34 billion yuan in total sales, an 92% growth YoY.

Douyin (TikTok) 618

Douyin 618 started on June 1st and ended at 8 a.m. on June 19th. The top 5 best-selling brands are:

1. Chuchu (new brand)
2. WHOO
3. China Gold
4. Shepinhui
5. Huawei

Apple ranks sixth overall or second after Huawei under “3C electronics” category.

The top five are expected to have sales of more than 100 million yuan. Unfortunately, Apple, Adidas, Nike, and other international brands are not expected to exceed 100 million yuan in sales on Douyin, according to Chinese media Yibang Dongli.

Douyin saw the largest new user growth of over 392% YoY among post-00s, followed by post-90s (+225.9% YoY).

This is Apple’s second year of participation in 618 and saw a sales increase of 16% YoY, according to data from Counterpoint Research.

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Social e-commerce Pinduoduo’s road to brand upgrade

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

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.

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

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.

In Q1 2018, Apple App Store generated 22.4 billion yuan (US$3.49 bn) from China, up 29% over Q1 2017. Mobile gaming apps took the largest share of 79% in revenues, but only saw an 18% increase year-on-year, well off that of entertainment apps (138%). The total number of downloads reached 2.5 billion in Q1 2018, representing 32% of the global downloads.

Apple’s App Store derived 32% of its global revenue from China according to Sensor Tower. China had surpassed the US and Japan as the largest iOS App Store market in Q3 2016 and remained its leading position for over a year and a half.

In Q1 2018, the revenue growth was attributed primarily from mobile game apps. Entertainment apps saw an explosive growth in revenues in this period. Social networking apps accounted for 4% of the total with a revenue of 0.8 billion yuan while photo and video apps only accounted for 3% of the total with 0.7 billion yuan in revenues.

The total number of downloads on Apple’s App Store reached 2.5 billion in Q1 2018, up 14% over Q1 2017, representing 32% of the global downloads. Of which, mobile game apps generated near 0.7 billion downloads with a share of 29% while entertainment apps ranked second with 0.22 billion downloads, accounting for only 9% of the total.

Mobile apps belonging to non-mobile game and non-entertainment categories took a 64% share in total downloads, up 14% year-on-year. Of which, downloads of tool apps and photo and video apps were 0.2 billion and 0.17 billion respectively, both had a share of 7% in total.

Check out the top mobile apps in China in Q1 2018 here.

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

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

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

Interbrand recently released their 2016 ranking of the Global Top Brands; Apple ranks first with $178,119 million brand value, followed by Google, Coca Cola, Microsoft, and Toyota.

Technology is, not surprisingly, the most dominant sector, with four brands in Top 10: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung. It also features some of the Top Growing Brands, with Facebook (+48%) as the Top Growing Brand in 2016, followed by Adobe (21%), Huawei (18%), Samsung (14%) and SAP (+13%), and number 2 ranked Google at (+11%).

Apple and Xiaomi are found most relevant to the lives of China’s Gen-Y and Gen-Z consumers according to RTG Consulting Group.

RTG surveyed 4,000 of China’s Gen-Y and Gen-Z consumers, listing which brands they find most relevant to their lives. Topping the list are well-known brands Apple and Xiaomi, followed by WeChat and Adidas.

Xiaomi tops the list of “most relevant brand” among Gen-Z, while Apple is the favorite among Gen-Y consumers. Fashion brands are more relevant in Gen-Z’s eyes, while the technology category plays a stronger role among China’s Gen-Y.

Other top rankings from the RTG report:

Also read: WeChat monthly active users reached 806 million in Q2 2016

Apple’s iOS growth in urban China reached the slowest since late 2014 according to the latest smartphone sales data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech for the three months ending January 2016. However, Apple still remained the most popular brand, capturing 25% of smartphone sales.

Huawei continued its momentum and is closing the gap with its nearest competitor, Apple, capturing 24.3% of sales. Xiaomi, which announced its Mi-5 at the recent Mobile World Congress, maintained a distant third, as it dropped 10.2 percentage points over the same period in 2015.

China mobile internet market is expected to exceed 4,672 billion yuan (US$717 billion) in 2016 with 830 million users, an increase by 51.7% and 5% respectively according to Analysis.

Also read: Chinese Smartphone Brands Accounted for 40% of Global Shipment in 2015

72% China online shoppers keep online all day according to a recent survey conducted by Epsilon.

The top factor that affects Chinese consumers brand satisfaction is brand accessibility whenever needed according to Epsilon. The same survey also revealed that two of the top 3 favorite brands are e-commerce platforms; Chinese consumers are regularly engaged with an average of three to four e-commerce brands.

65% respondents are willing to share their brand experience with families and friends; 60% would share in social media; and, 58% would share positive reviews online. The top engaged brands with Chinese consumers are Taobao (19%), Apple (13%), JD (12%) and Samsung (12%) while the top brands with the highest scores of brand satisfactions are Huawei (84%), WeChat (Weixin) (82%), and Tmall (82%).

Collecting personal private information during brand engagement may not be easy; effective tactics recommended by Epsilon include:

• Bonus points
• Member points
• VIP special offers
• Transparent and clear privacy policies

Also read:  Alibaba Rose to No. 1 Most Valuable Retail Brand in 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

About 2/3 Apple users upgraded to iOS8 in Q1 2015 according to Tencent’s data covering 1.7 billion devices.

This is largely due to pre-installed iOS8 on iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and new iPad which were hot-selling smartphones in China. In addition, new features such as Apple Pay and personal health monitoring motivated users to upgrade to iOS8.

Also read: Xiaomi Beat Samsung As Top Smartphone Vendor in 2014

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

Kantar Worldpanel’s latest research showed that iOS market share was decreasing in 2 months in the US, Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain in 2015. However, in China, iOS market share was still growing in four consecutive months since November 2014.

In November 2014, iOS market share in China was 18.1% and in February 2015, it increased to 27.6%.

Different from smartphone market in other countries like the US, Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain, China’s iOS market share is still growing rapidly as iPhone 6’s launched in October 2014; besides, China Mobile is promoting its 4G service. All these affected iOS market share in China in the first quarter in 2015.

The analyst from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech said that citizens have great demand in iPhones and 59% iPhone6 users are China Mobile subscribers. Further, iPhone6 is still the top-selling smartphone in China cities. its market share increased from 9.5% to 10.2% in February 2015.

Apple’s iOS reached its highest ever share in urban China with one in every four smartphones (25.4%) sold being an iPhone for the three months ending in January 2015, a 4.5 percentage point increase over the same period in 2014 according to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

Xiaomi ranked the second among best-selling ones in Feb 2015 in China. Xiaomi was the top smartphone vendor in China by shipments volume in both Q4 2014 and 2014 according to IDC.

Also read: Six of Top 10 Smartphone Brands Worldwide in 2014 from China

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

Weibo has been one of the indispensable mobile apps among China internet users with the popularity of smartphones. Weibo conducted a survey on smartphone development involving 100 million active smart device logging in Weibo in Q4 2014. More devices used logging in Weibo are China’s domestic brands. Among top 10 new smart device on Weibo in Q4 2014, domestic brands accounted for 85%.

In Q4 2014, among the new smartphones used Weibo app, high-end smartphone (>RMB3,000) accounted for 37.1% while smartphones between RMB1,200 and 2,999 accounted for 36.7% which indicates a large percentage of high-income users on Weibo.

In terms of Weibo’s monthly active users’ smartphone brands, Apple ranked top, representing 34.4%, followed by Samsung and Xiaomi.

Also read: Profile of China B2C E-C Weibo Accounts Users in 2014

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

Samsung’s market share in China was down from 22% to 12.5% in 2014, according to Silicon Valley investor Benedict Evans on Twitter.

Another tweet from him on Apple’s rising share in China:

Read more: A WeChat User On Average Reads 5.86 Articles Per Day

Apple beat Samsung in 2014, who used to be the best brand according to China brand Power Index (C-BPI) since 2012, and become the best mobile phone brand in China, released by China Enterprise Brand Research Center (“CEBRC”) of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The research by CEBRC involving 13,500 respondents (between 15 and 60 years old) from 30 cities in China, was conducted from August 2013 to January 2014 to investigate people’s brand perception loyalty in China.

Also read: China Top 10 Industries by Online Ad Spend in Sep 2014

Apple today announced that the App Store has added UnionPay as a payment option for customers in China. China UnionPay is the most popular payment card in China and will provide App Store customers with a simple and more convenient way to purchase their favorite apps. Customers can easily link their Apple ID with a UnionPay debit or credit card for one-tap purchases.

“The ability to buy apps and make purchases using UnionPay cards has been one of the most requested features from our customers in China,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “China is already our second largest market for app downloads, and now we’re providing users with an incredibly convenient way to purchase their favorite apps with just one-tap.”

As a bankcard network, China UnionPay operates China’s national inter-bank clearing and settlement system, develops the worldwide UnionPay Card acceptance network, promotes the issuance and usage of the UnionPay Card as well as other innovative payment solutions, so as to provide quality, efficient and safe payment services to cardholders.

To date, the total number of UnionPay Cards issued both at home and abroad has exceeded 4.5 billion. The UnionPay network has been extended to all cities and rural areas in China. In addition, China UnionPay has enabled UnionPay Card acceptance in over 140 countries and regions through extensive cooperation with more than 400 institutions around the world.

Alibaba is discussing a payment alliance between Apple and Alipay earlier this month that would focus on the Chinese market, and the two parties are currently discussing specifics of a possible partnership.

And, this announced collaboration with UnionPay is for Apple’s App Store and not Apple Pay; it’s still unclear whether Apple will seek a payment partner in China. If they do, Alipay will be most welcome by Chinese users considering it’s the largest mobile payment provider in China.

Also read: Insights of China Mobile Payment (Wechat, Alipay) Users

From the beginning of 2014, China smartphone manufacturers’ shipment volume are dramatically increasing, including Xiaomi, Lenovo and Huawei. Strategy Analytics’ latest data shows the total shipment of China’s smartphone manufacturers account for 38% of global total, surpassing combined total of Samsung and Apple.

Xiaomi’s market share by total smartphone shipment in Q1 2014 reached 3.9% and 5.6% in Q3, becoming the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the worled, following Samsung and Apple.

Xiaomi sold 18 million smartphones in Q3 2014, and the total Xiaomi smartphone shipment had an increase of 20% in Q3 2014.

Samsung’s market share in Q3 2014 decreased to 25% according to data of Strategy Analytics. And its profit from mobile business decreased from 20% to 7% in Q3 2014. Apple’s market share in global smartphone market was 12% in Q3 2014, which was its first time to fall below 15%.

Recently, Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade estimated that in the next 5 years, Chinese manufactures in shipbuilding, oil, steel, textile industry and so on will surpass manufactures in South Korea. Besides, it is estimated that China will surpass South Korea in middle and low range smartphones.

Also read: China Smartphone Offline Market Overview in August 2014

In July 2014, total online advertising spend of mobile phone related brands exceeded RMB 45.19 million ($7.35 million) in China. Among all the mobile phone related brands, Huawei spent RMB9.12 million ($1.48 million) in online advertising, ranking first, followed by Samsung electronics and Microsoft according to data from iResearch.

Compared with ad spend in June 2013, top three mobile manufacturers by online advertising cost were Nokia, Motorola and Samsung.

IT Website, online video and web portal are the top three ad placement channels among mobile brands in China in July 2014. Among them, the advertising spend on web portals exceeded RMB17.63 million ($2.87 million), accounting for 39% of the total spend, followed by IT website (23.8%) and online video (19.6%).

Also read: 77% Chinese Buying Products on Mobile Phones

According to a piece of public information on Fuzhou City government website, Apple started using China Telecom cloud storage for iCloud data from China users on 8 August 2014 after fifteen months’ testing.

The same document reveals that the downtime of the used China Telecom data center is 4 minutes and 19 seconds.

iCloud is the latest branding of Apple’s cloud computing services. It has previously been branded as iTools in 2000, .Mac in 2002, and MobileMe in 2008.

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.

China’s e-commercie platforms are not always cheap products with poor quality. Let’s see a few examples.

Apple’s only authorized e-commerce platform is on Tmall, opened in January 2014.

The average product price at Zwilling’s Tmall store is almost RMB 2,000 and it sells over RMB 15 million in one day, which is the total sales of one offline retail store.

Burberry launched its Tmall store in April. Read more here.

The turnover of Estee Lauder’s Tmall flagship store in June was nearly 10 million yuan, stimulating the off-line store sales at the same time. Estee Lauder launched Tmall flagship store on 21 May as the only authorized third-party e-commerce platform in China and the sales exceeded RMB 3 million on the first day.

French brand le coq sportif has been on Tmall for five years.

Companies with or without legal entity registered in China can benefit from Tmall platform. Incitez China are helping global brands set up both local and global Tmall online stores in China; talk to us to find out more.

According to ZDC China smartphone brand awareness report in March 2014, the number of smartphone manufacturers in China dropped 7 to 98 but the models only dropped 10. Neither global nor Chinese smartphone manufacturers launched new catchy models in March.

Samsung ranked the first in smartphone brand awareness ranking, with 20.1%. Followed by Apple and Huawei with 14.4% and 8.8% awareness respectively. Nokia and Coolpad ranked the third and fourth, but their difference was quite small.

Compared with February, there were eight brands’ ranking changed in March 2014. The top five’s ranking remained unchanged, however, Samsung, Nokia and Coolpad’s brand awareness dropped slightly. Apple and Huawei’s went up a little. HTC, OPPO and ZTE’s rankings all went up by one place, and Xiaomi replaced Motorola to be the top 15 brands.

For product awareness, in March, Apple’s iPhone 5S (16GB) topped with 5.1% awareness, growing 0.5% compared to last month. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 and iPhone 5 ranked the second and third.

Apple had four models on the list, highest of all manufacturers. Samsung, Huawei Honor, HTC and Nokia all had two models on the list.

The data showed that 10 out of top 15 models came into market in 2013, 3 new models were launched in 2014 and the other two were launched in 2011 and 2012. Only one model’s price was below 1000 yuan (USD 162).

For China smartphone price awareness, in March, models with price below 1000 yuan (USD 162) gained a big increase to 19.9%. While models with 1000 to 2000 yuan (USD 162-324) dropped to 28%, but it still had the highest awareness.

Android OS remained the number one with 78.2% awareness, but it dropped 1.3% compared to last month. iOS grew by 2.1 percentage points in March, reaching 14.4%. Windows Phone dropped 2% monthly.

Quad-core smartphone gained most awareness in March 2014, with 56.6%. And dual-core smartphone had 30% awareness, remained the same as last month.

ZDC data showed that models with 5.1-5.5 screen size had 18.1% awareness, increasing 3.2 percentage points. Smartphone with 4.6-5.0 screen size remained the dominant models, but its awareness dropped 0.8% slightly.

Smartphone with over 10 megapixel camera’s awareness increased to 38.1%, growing 1.6 percentage points. Smartphone with 8/8.7 megapixel camera had the highest awareness of 41.2%.

Smartphone with 2000-3000 mAh had the highest awareness of 51.7%.

Case Study

Samsung’s brand awareness in March was 20.1%, though still ranking the top but its advantage was decreasing. Its brand awareness kept dropping since January, industry competition brought more and more pressure on market leader Samsung.

Samsung had 122 models on market, among which 31 models were blow 1000 yuan (USD 162). Models with 3000-4000 yuan (USD 485-647) and over 4000 yuan (USD 647).

ZDC recently released a brand awareness analysis report of China smartphone market in February, 2014. The number of competitive manufacturers in China smartphone market remained unchanged in February, but the number of mobile phones reduced by over 20 compared to last month. For new mobile device, although many manufacturers launched new devices in MWC 2014, these mobile devices have not come to the market yet. There were few new arrivals in the market, and Vivo X3S became the new focus.

Brand Awareness

In terms of brand awareness, Samsung was still running ahead with over 20% awareness, followed by Apple with 12.3%. In February, Huawei ranked No.3 with 8.5% awareness. There were large gaps among top 3 brands, while No.3 to No.5 had closer awareness. Nokia hold a 0.2 points lead over Coolpad.

In the top 15 list, four brands moved up while three fell down. Nokia and Coolpad rose one place to No.4 and No.5 respectively. Lenovo dropped from 4 to 6. HTC surpassed Sony Mobile in February, and Meizu swapped place with Vivo.

Product Awareness

For product awareness, Apple iPhone 5S topped with 4.6% awareness. Samsung GALAXY Note 3 and Meizu MX3 followed, but not so closely. The top 15 devices were from Apple, Samsung, Meizu, Nokia, Huawei, Coolpad, HTC, LG, Lenovo and OPPO. Among them, Apple and Samsung both had three models on the list.  For configuration parameters, 11 out of 15 were using Android OS; 11 models had screen size larger than 5 inch; 8 models had quad-core CPU.

In February, devices in the 1000-2000 Yuan (USD 162 to 324) price range won most awareness, rising 3.3 points to 30.8%. The awareness of devices below 1000 Yuan (USD 162) and above 4000 Yuan (USD 649) fell slightly compared to last month. In other price range, the awareness was about the same as last month.

For operating system, Android still definitely occupied the mainstream with 79.4% awareness. Compared to last moth, Android awareness fell slightly to below 80% again. Apple iOS had 12.3% awareness while Windows Phone had 7.3%, a little higher than January.

Quad-core products were most popular in February; the awareness fell 0.3% to 55.2%. The awareness of dual-core products also decreased slightly (1.1 points), but remained over 30%. Eight-core/two quad-core products were getting more attention, increasing 2 points to 10.7% awareness.

According to ZDC, 4.6-5 inch screen size was the mainstream in February, with 32.7% awareness. Smartphones with over 5 inch screen had 31.4% awareness, representing a possibility of surpassing 4.6-5.0 inch’s. View from the trend, the awareness of 4.6-5.0 inch screen size fell slightly while the 5.0 inch’s kept rising.

As front camera entered the era of 10 megapixel, consumers’ demand of main camera continually increased. In February, smartphones with 8/8.7 megapixel camera were still the focus, but the awareness decreased 1.5 points to 42%. In contrast, the awareness of above 10 megapixel camera kept increasing to 36.5%.

For battery capacity, devices with 2000-3000 mAh battery had the highest awareness, 49.5%, getting close to half. The awareness of above 3000 mAh battery also increased to 19.9%, almost reached 20%. At the same time the awareness of below 2000 mAh battery kept falling.

Case Study: HTC

According to ZDC, HTC ranked No.7 with 4.5% awareness, moving up one place with 0.3% growth. This was a good sign for declining HTC. Recently HTC launched new Desire 8 series which caught people’s eye. This might be a nice start in 2014 for HTC to turn things around.

HTC has 42 models on the market now. Among them, there are 16 smartphones in 1000-2000 Yuan (USD 162 to 324) price range; 10 smartphones were under 1000 Yuan. Only 5 devices were in 2001-3000 (USD 324 to 487) price range, however these 5 devices brought 45.5% awareness for HTC. ZDC suggested that HTC should focus on middle-end and high-end smartphones.

In short, new devices of smartphone giants haven’t come to market yet, so China smartphone market was quiet in February. Nevertheless, it might be the quiet before the dawn: the competition was predicted to intensify next month, and the awareness pattern will change again.

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%.