September 2, 2012 at 6:21 AM by AHN · Â
Jerimiah Yap â€" Fourth Estate Cooperative Writer
New York, NY, United States (4E) â€" Apple’s win against Samsung in a US federal courtroom is just one in the many legal battles the two companies are currently engaged in. The two companies compete for supremacy as Samsung dominates the global smartphone market, while Apple is a close second place.
But in China, Apple isn’t even on the list of top five best selling smartphones. The iPhone just owns 7.5 percent of the smartphone market in the Middle Kingdom.
The six smartphone manufacturers that outsell Apple are Samsung, ZTE, Huawei, Lenovo, Coolpad and Nokia. Apple? Stuck in seventh place. In most regions of the world, the iPhone is very popular and almost always the top selling smartphone. This is bad news for Apple since China is a huge market for the smartphone industry.
Analysts believe that Apple’s weak sales in China are caused by its hefty price tag. Many Chinese consumers can’t afford an iPhone since it’s not carried by any local Chinese phone carriers. Given the low monthly salary of most Chinese consumers, it would take months before an ordinary citizen could afford an iPhone. Since there are a lot of cheaper alternatives and knockoffs to the iPhone, consumers would instead purchase these.
Even if Apple is in seventh place in China, it trails only the top one, Samsung, by 13.5 percent. Lenovo and ZTE only control 11 percent and 10.4 percent, respectively, which means Apple is behind by only a few percentage points.
“Among all the international smartphone brands competing in China, Apple is the only one not offering a product that complies with [China Mobile's] air standard. For Apple, this is a huge disadvantage,†said the author of the IHS report Kevin Wang in a press release, according to CNN Money.
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