Samsung Vanishes from China's 5G Phone Market
19 May, 2021
Samsung has virtually disappeared from China's 5G smartphone market, which signifies that it has globally been outpaced not merely by Apple but also Chinese rivals.
Until this past year, Samsung briefly had the very best market share, but this first quarter it sold only 17 million 5G phones to take into account a 12.7 percent market share, not even half of Apple's 30.2 percent or 40 million phones and behind OPPO's 21.6 million and Vivo's 19.4 million. Xiaomi is getting up fast with 16.6 million.
The primary reason is Samsung's near-total wipeout in the Chinese market, which makes up about 50 percent of global 5G phone sales.
Until 2013, Samsung dominated the Chinese 5G phone market with a 20-percent market show. But an unofficial boycott in 2017 and incidents of Galaxy Note 7 handsets catching fire pushed Samsung's market share below one percent.
Although Samsung regained its lead from Apple in overall global smartphone sales in the first quarter, Apple dominates the Chinese market for premium handsets and Huawei for cheaper smartphones.
Samsung came up with a plan to introduce cheap models solely for Chinese consumers, but that did not do the job. In 2019, Samsung released the world's first 5G smartphone in China, opt for Chinese company to make it and consolidated its procedures in China. But its market show shrank further from 0.8 to 0.6 percent.
"We're researching to make consumers differentiate Samsung phones from iPhones and trying to work through a technique for 5G smartphone marketing," a Samsung staffer explained.
Samsung is now going for a two-track method of tackling the Chinese market with affordable phones and foldable handsets.
Samsung's A series of 5G smartphones cost around W400,000 (US$1=W1,137). In the premium market, Samsung hopes to counter Apple with its foldable series just like the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3 in August. The Galaxy Z Flip 3 is certainly expected to cost at around W1 million, in comparison to W1.65 million because of its predecessor.
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