4 Tech Giants Are Eating Up China's Smartphone Market

China's smartphone market is increasingly dominated by four big players: Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi.

According to a report from marketing and analytics firm Canalys, the Chinese smartphone market shrunk by more than 21 percent year over year, from 114 million shipments in Q1 2017 to only 91 million in Q1 2018. Eight of the top 10 smartphone vendors saw declining sales, including smaller players Gionee, Meizu, and Samsung (in China, anyway), which are fighting for a smaller piece of the pie.

As for the big four, Huawei and its Honor line saw a modest 2 percent growth to 21 million smartphones shipped in Q1 2018, extending its leading market share from 18 to 24 percent. Oppo and Vivo maintained their standing in second and third place, respectively, though both vendors' sales declined year over year. The only Chinese smartphone manufacturer that saw significant growth was Xiaomi, which grew sales by 37 percent to 12 million smartphones shipped in Q1 2018.

Xiaomi's ascent also leapfrogged it over Apple into fourth place. Apple is left to fight for a share of the ever-smaller piece of the market left for the remaining smartphone makers, which declined by a steep 15 percent year over year, from 42 percent in Q1 2017 to 27 percent in Q1 2018.

For more inside coverage on the Chinese smartphone market, follow PCMag Lead Mobile Analyst Sascha Segan, who's on the ground in China at Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2018 this week with exclusive coverage, including an interview with OnePlus. The caveat with Chinese phones, of course, is that many will never make it over to the US.

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Don't Be Afraid of Huawei and ZTE

Hate the break it to you folks but @OPPO tells me the Find X is NOT coming to the US. It's a super-cool, innovative product, but they aren't ready to deal with our market yet. Yes on Europe though.

— saschasegan (@saschasegan) June 26, 2018

As long as the US government continues to target Chinese manufacturers including Huawei and ZTE with hardware bans and trade wars, that's not likely to change anytime soon.

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