Mirroring broader economic pressures in China and increasing market saturation, smartphone shipments in China experienced a slight downturn in the first quarter of 2016. According to research by Strategy Analytics, China’s top six device vendors collectively experienced a decline in smartphone shipments for the quarter vs. the same period in 2015, declining from 109.8 million units to 104.9 million units.
Despite the overall shipment decline, a number of smartphone vendors in China saw their market share increase, with Huawei, OPPO and Vivo seeing strong increases compared to the same period in 2015. Huawei had the biggest increase in market share, increasing from 10.2% to 15.8%. Meanwhile Apple, a company which relies heavily on the market in China to bolster sales of its popular iPhone line, saw a slight decrease in smartphone market share. The company’s market share was down 1.3 percentage points in Q1 2016 vs. a year ago.
The data from Strategy Analytics is in line with eMarketer’s own forecasts for smartphone user growth in China, particularly when it comes to user patterns among younger smartphone-savvy consumers. According to recent estimates, 2016 smartphone user growth among those in the smartphone-heavy 18- to-24-year-old age group will decrease by 2.3% compared to 2015. Although smartphone user growth among older age groups in China continues to increase by double-digit rates, the lackluster growth in new users among the younger demographics may prove challenging for smartphone vendors, at least in the short term.
