Well there are so many new Chinese smartphone vendors that have really
taken a hold of growth and what we're seeing according to Nomura
China's smartphone sales growth did actually turn negative in the first
quarter
after two years of extremely rapid growth and so
these companies are looking elsewhere in order to grow their market share lets
start with Xiaomi
also known as China's Apple, it leaped frogged Samsung in the second quarter sales
to become the top
selling vendor in China
it secured about 5.1 percent
of global market share now Xiaomi spent upwards of 1.9 billion yuan
upgrading production facilities and expects to ship
about sixty million smartphones this year that's up from
eighteen million in 2013
it also plans to expand
into about ten countries this year including India, Brazil
and Mexico
Moving on to Coolpad
though which is China's third-largest vendor by market share
it's also the seventh-largest globally with 3.7
percent of the market and it was the first
vendor to really in that race to the bottom
to start selling a smartphone handset for under 1000 yuan
or 160 dollars
Now Coolpad plans
to ship about 60 million smartphones this year and will spend
millions to promote its brand across Southeast Asia, Europe
and also the US
Moving on to Lenovo it's the number one smartphone
vendor in China and the fourth largest globally
in the second quarter it increased smartphone revenue
outside China to 20 percent of total sales that's up from just five percent a
year ago
and also after purchasing the Motorola unit
from Google Lenovo is very much gearing up for an aggressive expansion
in overseas emerging markets and it recently launched the Moto E
which currently retails for about a hundred and fifty dollars
and Huawei of course also growing extremely fast it shipped
21 million units in the second quarter giving it a market share of about 4.7 percent
now the company says its seen the strongest growth in places like the
Middle East and Africa
and Latin America with 275 percent
and 550 percent
year-on-year growth respectively in the second quarter
and moving on finally to ZTE
earlier this week the company launched the Nubia in the US which retails for
about two hundred eighty dollars
in Africa it's using its position as one of the continents
largest telecom equipment makers
to make a name for itself in the smartphone market which is quite interesting
and its currently in talks with Firefox to launch three
lower-cost smartphone devices across South Africa
It also has strong sales
in Kenya and Somalia, Bernie
My question is this, there's been so many
There have been so many allegations of cyber hacking in Chinese you know
you know getting in their code and systems and embedding themselves aren't people around
the world going to be a little bit
nervous, you know, about the prospect of using something that had its design
roots
in China? Is that a valid concern or am I being completely
Xenophobic saying something like that?
That has definitely been an issue
for a couple of these companies looking to operate in the US
we know that that's been a problem for both ZTE and Huawei
trying to secure a contract from the US and also trying to sell
their phones
over in the US but what we're seeing is that they actually started very
early on in Africa expanding
around the 1990's they started
expanding that telecom equipment in Africa
so that is seen as the real area for smartphone growth going
forward
and when you look at penetration rates you're not really seeing the penetration
rates that you're seeing of say China which
ninety percent
of current sales of handset vendors
now are smartphones in China
so a lot of growth in Africa
I still get the sense that we're talking low end
stuff here
I'm sorry I'm just gonna say it but cheap stuff, you know, I mean, if
the Moto E retails for 150 dollars
it ain't an iPhone, it can't take you into the Apple Universe it's not like Samsung
it's not going to control your refrigerator
aren't people gonna want more things like to control climate, controlling
your life and
having a multi-faceted device that can do so many other things
for you?
But if they can get all of that for less
I mean the thing is that
They can get all that for a 150 bucks?
It's cheaper to manufacture these phones than ever before and you've got
something like Firefox with the operating system that's
coming out that's going to be really big for the emerging markets where we're
seeing all of the growth
throughout Latin America, throughout
Africa
Maybe they can work on their
branding and names a little bit, I mean, the ZTE 1, Julia?
The Nubia?
As in Nubiles or new like
new brand spanking phone, I mean really? Sorry, OK, I shouldn't have said that