“China’s smartphone market is huge. Local vendors are continuing to gain share,” Chandan Sarkar writes for Seeking Alpha. “Apple (AAPL) is managing to hold on to its high end market share, but local vendors are about to move upstream.”
“Although Android now commands more than 68% of the smartphone market in China, it is not exactly turning out the way Google (GOOG) may have wanted,” Sarkar writes. “Windows Phone share in China, what little there is, is currently skewed towards the high end. But the recent introduction of the Nokia (NOK) Lumia 520 may change that.”
Sarkar writes, “Although Apple’s market share in China has seen modest ups and downs over the past two quarters, its overall units continue to see decent growth given that the market, overall, is growing — thus stagnant market share does not mean stagnant sales. Given that much of the growth is taking place in the low end of the market where Apple does not currently play, these market share statistics suggest that Apple’s market share at the high end remains quite strong in China. The main issue for Apple in China is that Lenovo, Huawei, and ZTE are all creeping up the food chain.”
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