China’s smartphone market accelerated in Q4 with shipments increasing 19 per cent year-on-year to 135.7 million units, while full year shipments grew 9 per cent to 467.3 million, according to IDC.

The top three vendors – Oppo, Huawei and Vivo – accounted for 51 per cent of shipments in China in Q4, up from 45.5 per cent in Q4 2015, when Huawei, Apple and Xiaomi were the leaders.

“Increased dependence on mobile apps has led to consumers to seek phone upgrades, thus helping drive the large growth in Q4,” said Tay Xiaohan, senior market analyst with IDC Asia Pacific. In lower tier cities, he said there was similar demand by consumers, which Oppo and Vivo met by aggressively pushing midrange smartphones.

IDC forecasts the top vendors will continue to take up a larger share of the market in 2017, while smaller brands will begin to consolidate.

Oppo expanded its market share by nearly 8 percentage points to 18.1 per cent in Q4 (see chart, click to enlarge), after shipments more than doubled year-on-year to 24.5 million units. Huawei’s growth slowed to 28 per cent and its share fell by almost 1 point to 16.9 per cent. Number three Vivo’s shipments nearly doubled to 21.7 million and its market share jumped to 16 per cent from 9.7 per cent in Q4 2015.

China smartphone Q4 IDC
Fourth place Apple saw its share fall by 4 percentage points in Q4 to 11 per cent after shipments dropped 13 per cent to 14.9 million units. Last year was the first time Apple suffered a year-on-year decline in the China market, with shipments down 23 per cent and its share falling 4 points to 9.6 for the full year, IDC said.

Xiaomi fell to fifth from third a year ago as shipments declined 41 per cent in Q4 and its share dropped to 7.4 per cent from 14.8 per cent in Q4 2015.

IDC said a stand out trend was the slowdown of the growth of online channels in China, noting no single channel is seeing exponential growth for smartphones unlike in previous years. Most brands are now using a combination of channels to increase shipments.

The research firm said Chinese vendors are starting to launch phones with dual cameras and curved screens, which it expects to be the norm for most flagships in 2017.