China Challenge: Can Apple iPhone Catch Up with Android Dominance?
By Karla Robinson
November 19, 2012
November 19, 2012
As Chinese consumers make the move to smartphones, the billion-plus mobile phone subscribers represent a potential expansion opportunity for manufacturers, and a challenge for Apple.- “Based on recent data reported by Chinese research firm, Analysis International, which has tracked smartphone sales for the past several quarters, Apple may have a challenging time replicating the market share success its iPhone has seen in other countries: In the third quarter of 2012, Android accounted for 90.1 percent of all smartphone sales in China,” GigaOM reports.
- The post includes a graph from Analysis International that shows Google’s Android consistent rise in adoption from Q2 2011 to Q3 2012. Nokia’s Symbian platform controlled almost a third of the market in 2011, but quickly dropped off to less than 5 percent by the last quarter.
- “Analysis International also tracked the average selling price of handsets by platform and that helps explain the situation,” notes the post. “While costs for all smartphones have been decreasing in China, the average Android handset costs about one-third that of an iPhone.”
- As consumers switch from feature phones, low- to mid-end Android models are still large improvements, even if they don’t offer all the bells and whistles of Apple’s phones.
- “I suspect Apple will still sell more than enough iPhones in China to add billions of profit for the company,” the post states. “But any ideas of iOS taking a large portion of the market in China — or India, for that matter — have to be tempered due to the fast growth of Android.”
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