Premium play costs top Chinese mobile companies market share

The combined market share of top Chinese smartphone brands such as Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and Realme have fallen sharply from their peaks due to them reducing presence in lower-priced segments as demand dwindled and greater government scrutiny of these firms, market trackers said. Their loss has been the gain of the likes of Samsung, Apple and smaller Chinese and Indian companies.

Market tracker TechArc estimated that the combined share of top Chinese brands slumped to around 70% in the first quarter of 2023 from 85% a year earlier, with Samsung, Apple, Tecno, Motorola, Nokia, and Indian brand Lava making up bulk of the balance 30%.

Faisal Kawoosa, chief analyst at TechArc, said the big Chinese brands reducing presence in their core budget segment in search of higher margins and revenues from the premium segment led to a fall in their market shares. “This has resulted in smaller brands such as Tecno, Motorola, Nokia, and Lava to strengthen their positioning,” he said.

IDC India said the decline in the market shares of top Chinese players started since the first quarter of 2020 when these brands had a combined share of 77%. By the first quarter of 2023, it had fallen to 61%, the market tracker said. Share of global brands like Samsung and Apple has increased from 17% to 27% during the same period, IDC said.

Emerging Chinese player Transsion has now climbed to the sixth spot with a 7% market share in Q1 2023, driving volumes in offline segment through budget-centric brands like Tecno and Itel (which is also the largest feature phone brand), while its Infinix drives volumes through online channels, IDC said. At a time when the market has been steadily going up the price ladder, Transsion brands have been sustaining volumes through affordable pricing and deeper brand penetration, it said.

Similarly, Motorola has been gaining momentum in the past few quarters with its portfolio of affordable 5G smartphones, coming up as a challenger brand to Redmi and Realme. Motorola has a market share ranging from 1-2%, as per IDC.

Counterpoint Research also noted a decline in the combined market share of the Chinese brands, albeit with a conservative number.

The research firm noted that the combined share of Chinese brands peaked at 76% in 2021 but has been steadily declining since. As of the first quarter of 2023, they had a 73% combined share, which is expected to go down to around 70% by the end of the year, it said.