Smartphone brands grow overseas

Source: Xinhua | 2018-01-05

CHINESE smartphone brands will expand overseas in 2018 because the domestic market has become saturated, research firms said yesterday.

Both leading and startup brands will have to turn to emerging overseas markets to grow their sales and market share, as Xiaomi has done in India and Transsion in Africa, they said.

By 2017, Oppo led the Asian smartphone market with a 15 percent share, followed by 13 percent for Vivo, 12 percent for Xiaomi, 12 percent for Samsung and 11 percent for Huawei, said research firm Counterpoint.

Global smartphone output hit 1.46 billion units in 2017, up 6.5 percent from a year ago. For 2018, TrendForce forecasts production at around 1.53 billion units, up just 5 percent.