What They Say
Canalys released data on the smartphone market in China and said that sales in Q4 were down 4% on 2019 at 84 million units. That meant an 11% decline over the year to just over 330 million units.
For Q4 2020, Huawei (including Honor) managed to ship 18.8 million units, and its market share declined to 22% from 41% in Q3 2020. Oppo rose rapidly into second place, shipping 17.2 million smartphones, growing 23% year-on-year. Vivo also showed strong year-on-year growth at 20%, and came in third at 15.7 million units. Apple also reported its best performance in China in recent years, shipping more than 15.3 million units in Q4, with 18% market share, up from 15% in Q4 2019. Xiaomi completed the top five, shipping 12.2 million units, growing 52% year-on-year.
Check the link if you want data on brand volumes and growth.
What We Think
Canalys showed an interesting chart of smartphone sales in China over recent years. I knew that 2020 was down, but I hadn’t got in mind that the market in China has been shrinking since 2017. That must be a fiercely tough market. There has been some economic growth, but just very small population growth in recent years (around 0.5% per year in the last decade. It’s well known that it’s pretty well essential to have a smartphone in cities for payments etc, so clearly Chinese buyers are keeping their smartphones longer. That’s not surprising given how good the current mid-range phones are. (BR)
