Over the past two years, Chinese manufacturers have consistently increased their share of the smartphone market. Unlike Apple, Huawei, Oppo and Vivo record sales of their products. What is the reason for the success of the Chinese brands?.
According to IDC, now the mobile market continues to grow only thanks to companies from China. Last quarter, Apple sold 51.6 million smartphones, increasing sales by only 0.8%. Sales of Samsung for the year did not change and account for 79.2 million devices. The third, fourth and fifth places are occupied by three Chinese firms - Huawei with 34.2 million, Oppo with 25.6 million and Vivo with 18.1 million. And if compared to the first quarter of last year, Samsung and Apple showed a slight increase, then Huawei, Oppo and Vivo are developing intensively - by 21.7%, 29.8% and 23.6% respectively.
The positions of Chinese brands in the local market are particularly strong. In the last quarter, Huawei returned here first place, selling 20.8 million smartphones versus 16.6 million a year earlier. Oppo took the second place, having managed to sell 18.5 million devices against 10.2 million last year. Closes the top three Vivo, which in the first quarter of 2016 was able to sell 11.3 million smartphones, and a year later sold 18.1 million. Apple is only in fourth place, and its sales in China fell from 12.5 to 10.7 million smartphones.
According to analysts, the success of Huawei, Oppo and Vivo is based on three elements: the desire to build a brand, aggressive marketing and a differentiated product line. But these are only the main principles that unite all three leaders. If you look at each player individually, you can see some differences.
When a few years ago Xiaomi took off to the top of the market, many noted how cleverly these Chinese guys changed focus on Internet sales. Indeed, at that stage of market development it was extremely important to offer the most advanced models of smartphones at the lowest price, and the refusal to work with retailers played an important role in this. Today, Xiaomi has been ousted from the top-5 rating by its competitors Oppo and Vivo, who adhere to the opposite approach. It was due to the developed retail in Chinese provincial cities that they managed to achieve phenomenal sales growth. In large cities, these companies have focused on activities that attract attention to the brand. It can not be said that Oppo and Vivo abandoned Internet sales: cooperation with the JD site and participation in online sales helped them to get sales in the network.
Chinese brands are focusing on the key technologies inherent in their product. For example, in its advertising, Oppo does not talk about what wonderful and cheap smartphones they have, but says specifically about the advantage of all their models - fast charging: "charge a smartphone in 5 minutes to talk for 2 hours". Huawei used the local messenger WeChat, where he advertised the camera of the P9 smartphone, emphasizing its advantages and the fact that it was created in collaboration with Leica. Concentrated, clearly formulated marketing campaigns are hitting a wide segment of the audience, putting off in their memory a bunch between a specific brand and technology.
Attracting stars. It would seem that a well-known marketing move, but Chinese brands rarely resort to such contracts with an eye to the local market. For example, Xiaomi did not spend a lot of money on the stars that would represent the brand. But, where Xiaomi is now, it's already clear, and the young and daring Chinese Oppo and Vivo are not stingy in attracting popular stars among young people. Chain reaction launched Oppo, inviting several stars to promote the model R9. Competitors saw that this works, and decided to keep up. Vivo, for example, attracted for marketing a Korean star, popular among Chinese youth. Huawei announced the appearance of its own starry face in the line of smartphones for the Chinese market. You can remember about Ashton Kutcher and Cristiano Ronaldo, who became the faces of Lenovo and ZTE.
And what about Apple? Nothing.
Last year the Cupertino company had high hopes for the launch of the affordable iPhone SE in China, but did not take into account one small detail - 90% of the smartphones sold in China account for models with a screen larger than 5 inches. Sales of the iPhone 7 were largely failed: the implementation of "apple" smart phones in the Middle Kingdom has continued to decline for five consecutive quarters. Perhaps, the Chinese will be interested in the iPhone 8 with a large screen and thin frames, but while sales of the iPhone in the Middle Kingdom are sloping.