A report by the Korea International Trade Association (KITA) claims that Samsung was the sixth-largest smartphone manufacturer in China at the end of June. According to KITA, Chinese consumers owned 48 million Samsung-branded smartphones at the end of June, while Apple managed to grab the first spot, as 171 million iPhone’s were owned by Chinese consumers in that same time period. Having said that, Huawei was second-placed with 132 million handsets, while OPPO, Vivo and Xiaomi grabbed third, fourth and fifth place, with 124 million, 108 million and 68 million smartphones, respectively.
KITA also mentioned that Samsung actually dropped a couple of places in the first half of the year, as Chinese consumers seem to prefer more affordable smartphones from local brands, and the Galaxy Note 7 incident might have something to do with that, actually. KITA also mentions that 63 percent of phone sold in the Chinese market, in the second quarter, were low and mid-range handsets which cost less than 2,000 Yuan ($305). Now, as far as more expensive devices are concerned, those that cost 4,000 Yuan ($621) or more, companies managed to sell only 6.4 percent of those phones, in comparison with more affordable devices. Chinese brands are most popular with adolescents and college students, claims KITA, as over 43 percent of OPPO smartphone owners are aged between 16 and 25.
The published report also claims that Samsung needs to win back the trust of consumers if it plans to improve its standing in China, as KITA seems to believe that the Galaxy Note 7 debacle still keeps consumers away from Samsung’s smartphones. KITA also emphasizes that only 7.2 percent of Samsung phone owners repurchased one of the company’s devices in the second quarter of this year. Now, as a reminder, Strategy Analytics said that Samsung is still the number one smartphone manufacturer on a global scale, as the company managed to ship 89 million smartphones and traditional handsets in the April-June period, and by doing that, Samsung grabbed 20.5 percent of the global market. It remains to be seen if the company will be able to improve its standings in China in the third and fourth quarter of the year, as the Galaxy Note 8 might help it do just that, though the iPhone 8 is also around the corner, so it will be interesting to see what will happen.