China, the world's largest smartphone market, is now also the world's largest 5G market. According to a survey by the China Institute of Information and Communication Studies, the number of smartphones shipped in China in 2020 reached 307.9 million units. Although it decreased by 20.8% from 2019 due to the influence of the new coronavirus, 300 million smartphones are still shipped annually.
Of these, 5G smartphones shipped 163 million units, which is 52.9% of the total smartphone shipments. As for the number of 5G smartphone products, 218 models have appeared, including variations such as memory configurations. In China, new product launches for 5G smartphones are held almost every week.
So which manufacturers are strong and what smartphones are selling in China? Looking at the share by manufacturer from 2019 to 2020 compiled by CINNO Research, 1st Huawei, 2nd Vivo, 3rd OPPO, 4th Honor, 5th Apple, 6th Xiaomi, 7th Realme, 8 Followed by Samsung. Of these, Honor was a sub-brand of Huawei until the end of 2020 and was grouped together, but this survey shows the sales volume of each individually.
Huawei's number one will be convincing, but Honor is number four, ahead of Apple. Honor alone sold quite a few. Also, companies have dropped shipments since 2019, but only Apple and Xiaomi have increased significantly. After all, Apple had a big "iPhone SE" effect, and Xiaomi's aggressive new product development was accepted by Chinese consumers. Other manufacturers have also reduced the number the most, including ZTE, TCL, Lenovo, Meizu and Hisense. However, each of these companies will launch attractive terminals in 2021 and try to make a comeback.
ZTE unveils second-generation display-embedded camera smartphone technology at MWC Shanghai 2021, close to commercializationNext, what kind of products were sold in China? I would like to compare the annual sales volume, but it is difficult to make a direct comparison because the sales period differs depending on the release time. So, on November 11th, when online shopping is the most exciting in a year, I decided to take a look at the sales ranking by smartphone model of Keito (JD.com), a major e-commerce site for Singles' Day.
Ranking by smartphone model sold in Keito on November 11, 2020It may be reasonable that the iPhone is number one, but the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro released in October 2020 were not ranked, and the best-selling iPhone was the iPhone 11. Although the specifications such as display resolution and 5G non-compliance are lower than the iPhone 12, the price is 700 yuan (about 10,500 yen) cheaper. Considering the cost performance, many Chinese thought that the iPhone 11 would be enough. According to a survey by Omdia, the iPhone 11 is the number one smartphone model sold worldwide in 2020, and is the second most popular model in 2019.
However, if you look at the second place and below, Apple's products are not included, and all are products of Chinese manufacturers. Of these, 5 are 5G models and 4 are 4G models, which are close to the 5G / 4G ratio of China's 2020 full-year smartphones mentioned above. Looking at the manufacturers, there are 7 models of Xiaomi and 2 models of Realme, and Huawei, which ranks first in the year, and Vivo and OPPO, which rank second or lower, are not included.
Looking at the actual selling price of each model, Redmi K30 is 1599 yuan (about 26,000 yen), realme Q2 is 1299 yuan (about 21,000 yen), Redmi Note 8 is 959 yuan (about 16,000 yen), Redmi 10X is 1399 yuan (about 23,000 yen), Redmi 9A is 599 yuan (about 9900 yen), realme V3 is 1399 yuan (about 23,000 yen), Xiaomi Mi 10 is 3599 yuan (about 59,000 yen) , Redmi 8A is 699 yuan (about 11,000 yen), Redmi Note8 Pro is 1299 yuan (about 21,000 yen). Other models except Mi 10 are low-priced models of less than 1600 yuan.
Xiaomi's Redmi K30 was the best-selling Chinese manufacturer on Singles' Day (November 11th).Of course, Huawei also has low-priced models including Honor, and Vivo has many types of smartphones in the 1000 yuan range. On the other hand, OPPO has few models in the 1000 yuan range, and it seems that the low-priced machine is left to Realme, which can be said to be a brother company. OPPO is not chasing the number of sales, but instead of running on cheap routes to maintain brand value, it is changing its sales strategy with other manufacturers.
Huawei stalls due to a sharp drop in production