By Raymond Zhong
Jan. 4, 2019
BEIJING — To most Americans, the names are unfamiliar, maybe a little hard to pronounce: Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo.
They are China’s biggest smartphone brands. Around the world — although not in the United States — they are making the handset business brutally competitive. This week, after Apple warned of disappointing iPhone sales in China, industry observers said that devices from the Chinese brands were a major culprit. https://photos.google.com/search/tra/photo/AF1QipPcdT_IgLDsu7yGiOiX0SfH19MPd5_zvjRuYdWJ
As the phone market in China reaches saturation and sales shrink over all, the country’s hardware makers are pushing hard, and increasingly winning fans, in places like France, Germany, India and Southeast Asia, where consumers find that the phones can do just about everything an iPhone can do at a fraction of the cost.
Apple sits comfortably atop the market in many countries, including China, for the highest-end handsets. But companies like Huawei have started to do elsewhere what they have done in China, competing with the iPhone on experience and value and luring customers with price comparisons that make them rethink buying Apple’s signature product.
The cost difference is notable: In China, an iPhone XR starts at around $950, while Huawei’s top-end handsets start at about $600, and Xiaomi’s comparable models start at even less. The iPhone XS starts at around $1,250.
Companies like Huawei and Oppo have made improvements in features and overall quality that are enticing many wealthy Chinese people, said Mo Jia, an analyst in Shanghai for the technology research firm Canalys. Chinese brands’ aggressive marketing and sales campaigns in Europe indicate that the companies believe consumers there who have traditionally used iPhones will do the same thing.
Source
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/technology/china-smartphones-iphone.html?partner=IFTTT