Chinese consumers look for high-end smartphones

Chinese consumers have higher demand for mid-range and high-end smartphones, according to a latest study of Nielsen Device Share (NDS).The study showed that Chinese demand for smartphones priced over RMB2,000 increased to 45.7% from 36.9% in 2015.In contrast, phones priced below 2,000 yuan have experienced slight share shrink over the same period last year.This result indicated that with the rising disposable income of Chinese consumers, they are more willing to invest in higher-end digital devices.While mid-range and high-end smartphones are in great demand, foreign smartphone brands dominated the market share by reaching 38.03% out of total market in December 2015 as their Chinese competitors only accounted for 7.66%.Despite the dominance of foreign brands in high-end markets, there are winning Chinese manufacturers including Huawei, OPPO and vivo.According to the report, all three China’s home-grown brands have seen obvious market share increase , with Huawei jumping to 2.13% from 0.34%, OPPO rising to 2.48% from 1.37%, and vivo climbing to 1.64% from 1.21%.James Gong, vice-president of Nielsen China, said Chinese consumers are now highly engaged to their smartphones, resulting in people choosing smartphones with better performance.“In the future, their demand will be more sophisticated and are in pursuit of better user experience, therefore, how to grasp consumers’ core demand, create products that meet their expectations, will be vital for smartphone manufacturers’ success," said Gong.