Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Device Vendor Market Share
Development of Chinese smartphone market
Having contributed massively to the Chinese economy in the last decade, the smartphone industry has been a rather successful industry in China for a long time. This success has even started to spread overseas, mainly from the leading vendors Huawei, OPPO and Xiaomi. Since 2011, the number of smartphone shipments in China has steadily increased, reaching over 460 million units in 2016 at the highest ever shipment. However, the figure dropped slightly in 2017, and fell below 400 million units in 2018. Despite this decline, more smartphones were sold in China than in any other country in the world. In 2015, China was responsible for almost 30 percent of smartphone shipments worldwide. The country is forecast to maintain its leadership, as China is projected to account for about a quarter of the worldwide smartphone shipments in 2019.
Smartphones in China
Over 60 percent of Chinese are using a smartphone in 2018, leaving around 30 percent of the population without. In 2014, there were 482.7 million smartphone users in China. By 2019, this figure is expected to reach almost 750 million and subsequently exceed 850 million by 2023. In terms of operating systems, Google’s Android holds more than 80 percent of the market share, whereas Apple’s iOS accounts for about 20 percent of the smartphone operating system market in China. Despite the relatively easier access to cheap smartphones in the market, Chinese consumers still considered the practicalities, namely the internal memory and processor, as the most importantly factor when buying a phone, even much more than the price level and photo qualities.