Smartphone shipments in the China market are expected to grow 25.4% sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2020 due to increasing shipments of Apple's iPhone 12 lineup and aggressive marketing by first-tier Chinese brands including Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo for taking over the market share left over by Huawei, according to Digitimes Research.
In the third quarter of 2020, sales of smartphones in China fell 25.2% sequentially and 26.2% on year amid weak demand in the local market and an escalation of the fresh US trade bans against Huawei, Digitimes Research says.
Even so, Huawei still remained the top smartphone vendor in China in the third quarter, followed by Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi and Apple, with the top-5 vendors accounting for 97.2% of market share, down 0.8pp from the previous quarter.
It is estimated that part of Huawei's market share in the fourth quarter would be snatched by brands including Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi, and Apple, with the US smartphone vendor likely to step up one notch to replace Xiaomi as the fourth largest vendor in the quarter.
