China’s new smartphone king is a brand you’ve probably never heard of

Photo credit: SteveC.

After the demise of HTC, Samsung, and Xiaomi in recent years in China’s smartphone market, all the smart money was on Huawei lifting the crown in 2016. But that’s not what happened.

China’s top phone brand last year was actually Oppo, according to data this week from IDC.

The US-based analyst firm says that “aggressively pushing mid-range smartphones” into China’s smaller and poorer cities, where people are trading up from budget phones, helped boost Oppo as well as its two nearest rivals, Huawei and Vivo.

Apple, Xiaomi suffer

2016 was the year Chinese consumers rebuffed Xiaomi’s phones as well as its entire modus operandi of selling phones online. IDC saw a “slowdown of the growth of the online channel in China” as shoppers went to brick-and-mortar stores to buy their fondleslabs.

Oppo promotes the selfie savvy of its R9 phone at a promotional event in Indonesia. Photo credit: Didi Putra.

While Xiaomi has managed to stay in China’s top five, it took a severe kicking, losing more market share than any other leading brand.

Apple had a bad year too, with 2016 phone shipments below its 2015 tally, resulting in a four-point drop in China market share.

See: How Apple can win back the Chinese smartphone market

Strong sense of selfie

China’s phone market shows signs of consolidation as the top three account for more buyers than ever before. Oppo, Huawei, and Vivo collectively dominate 51 percent of new smartphone shipments.

Xiaomi took one hell of a kicking.