According to a new report by Financial Times, Chinese consumers prefer Huawei over Apple. Financial Times actually conducted a survey in China, and it seems like Huawei was the first choice for respondents, as more than 31.4 percent of them opted for Huawei. Having said that, 24.2 percent of respondents said that they’d prefer to purchase an iPhone, while that percentage stood at 25.8 percent in the same time frame last year, when the iPhone 7 launched. Do keep in mind that this survey was conducted quite recently, as soon as September wrapped up to see what are preferences of Chinese consumers when it comes to their next smartphone purchase.
Now, some of you probably recall that a report surfaced at the beginning of last month, stating that Huawei trumped Apple and managed to become the second-largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. Well, it seems like Huawei is well ahead of Apple in its homeland as well. Huawei actually managed to grow quite a bit in the last couple of years, mainly due to the fact the company invested quite a bit of its resources in R&D and manufacturing, while aggressive marketing and sales channel expansion definitely helped as well. OPPO and Vivo also managed to grow quite a bit in China in the last couple of years, and after a rather underwhelming 2016, Xiaomi seems to be back as well, as the company managed to sell 10 million smartphones in September, and if reports are to be believed, this China-based company actually sold over 60 million handsets thus far in 2017.
Apple had recently introduced its new iPhones, the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X. The first two handsets are already available for purchase, and it seems like most people are interested in the iPhone X, as 65.1 percent of respondents said that they intend to get that phone over the iPhone 8 or iPhone 8 Plus. All in all, it will be interesting to see what will happen in the remaining three months this year, will Apple be able to regain its number 2 spot on a global scale? Will the company manage to close the gap with Huawei in China? Those are all questions that remain to be answered, so stay tuned.