Subsidies provided by China's top-3 telecom carriers led by China Mobile to encourage 2G and 3G service users to switch to 4G services continued to push China's mid-range and inexpensive 4G smartphone sales and shipments in the third quarter.
China-based vendors Oppo, BBK (Vivo) and Huawei saw strong sales for their high-end, mid-range and inexpensive smartphones in the third quarter. China-based vendors were aggressive about pushing their shipments to overseas markets for year-end holiday demand in the third quarter and this helped China's smartphone shipments to non-China regions to rise, according to Digitimes Research's latest report about China's smartphone industry.
China-based smartphone vendors together shipped 168 million smartphones worldwide in the third quarter, up 10.6% sequentially and 18.6% on year. Of the shipments, the volume to overseas markets increased 15.5% sequentially and 16.2% on year to reach 72.7 million units.
The top-5 China-based smartphone vendors were Huawei, Oppo, BBK, Xiaomi and TCL in the third quarter, together contributing more than 55% of the overall shipment volume. The top-3 vendors Huawei, Oppo and BBK all had double-digit percentage market shares in the third quarter and a combined market share of over 45%.
As for the fourth quarter of 2016, shipments to overseas markets are expected to rise significantly from a quarter ago, while domestic demand will only have limited growth. Overall volume in the quarter will surpass 184 million units.
Content from this article was part of a complete Digitimes Research Chinese-language report that has not yet been translated into English. If you are interested in an English version of the report or wish to receive more information about the report, click here to contact us and we will get back to you as soon as possible. Digitimes Research also provides quarterly tracking services for market sectors such as China Smartphone, China Smartphone AP, Taiwan ICT and Taiwan FPD. Click here for more information about Digitimes Research Tracking services.
