The latest IDC Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker for the second quarter of this year, reveals that there were 111.8 million smartphones shipped to China in the quarter, with growth being flat when compared to the same quarter last year.
Following the launch of new mobiles by Oppo, Vivo and Huawei in the last quarter of last year, the market started to slow down. Some of the reasons for this slowdown have been leftover inventory as well as new introductions from Oppo and Vivo being launched towards the end of the second quarter and the beginning of third. IDC believes that the second half of this year will have larger shipments that the first half as Apple and other Chinese players will introduce new flagship products.
Some of the highlights for the quarter, are as follows:
- Huawei’s P10 boosted shipment growth and its Honor branded phones made up more than half of Huawei’s overall shipments.
- Oppo’s R9s and R9s Plus made up half of Oppo’s overall shipments in the quarter. Its R11 was launched in mid-June and managed to ship over 2 million phones within that short timeframe.
- Xiaomi resolved the initial supply issues it had with its products and has increased its offline presence with more Mi Home stores now available in the market. It also saw the most sales on JD.com during the 18th June mid-year online sales event.
IDC forecasts for the second half of the year, include:
- IDC believes there is a lot of anticipation for Apple’s 10-year anniversary iPhone which will be launched towards the end of the year. With the iPhone 8 expected to look significantly different from the iPhone 7, it is expected that the iPhone 8 to be more popular than the iPhone 7.
- It is expected that more companies will start launching phones with dual front and rear cameras due to the selfie culture, and this could soon become the new minimum requirement for companies in China.
- IDC expects the Android mobile average selling price to continue to rise around 10% per year starting next year due to the shift towards higher-end models with better quality and specifications.
111.8 million smartphones were shipped to China in the second quarter
