It’s been a while since we’ve seen some Apple vs Samsung headlines or news items, and that’s because maybe everyone has finally realized that the landscape and market has changed so much since the time when it was just a two-horse race. Now both companies have to contend not just with the emergence of Chinese brands like Huawei and Xiaomi but also the changing landscape of both developed and developing markets. So it’s now time for the erstwhile rivals to stop worrying about each other and start looking at other threats.
This is actually the statement that research firm Kantar has made in their latest analysis of the mobile phone industry. People should stop focusing on the old rivalry and instead look at how Huawei for example is targeting to overtake Apple as the 2nd largest smartphone vendor in four years time or how Google might actually go into making their own devices eventually (Nexus phones don’t count). The narrative also that Samsung can poach users from Apple and vice versa may not be true anymore because based on the numbers, majority of the sales come from users upgrading or repurchasing within their preferred brand already.
While in the US and UK, Apple and Samsung are still kings, if we look beyond that, we’ll see the emerging players are not doing too shabbily in the developing markets. In China for example, which is of course the largest smartphone market right now, Xiaomi dethroned Samsung back in 2014, but now two years later, it’s a fight between Huawei and Apple. Brand loyalty is pretty low in this part of the world, so that brings more chances for all these players to stake their claim.
Smartphone purchases have relatively slowed down in developed markets, but countries like India are actually experiencing double digit growth. Xiaomi and Micromax are strong challengers against Samsung (still top) while Huawei has already announced they intend to grow their market share in the South Asian nation. We also need to keep an eye on the Latin and South American markets as they are seen to be the next developing region in terms of mobile device sales. So yes, Apple and Samsung, you have a lot more things to worry about.
SOURCE: Kantar
