This is why Xiaomi, Huawei and other Chinese brands are winning

In case it’s not clear enough, people are tired of paying for expensive phones. And that’s not just us stating the obvious: Gartner’s recent report on Global Smartphone sales shows global juggernauts like Samsung and Apple are losing market share thanks to Chinese brands like Huawei, whose phones have lower price tags.

Both Samsung and Apple still lead over their Chinese rivals, but both companies lost market share in the fourth quarter of 2018: Samsung lost about a percent, while Apple lost around 2.

That’s stark contrast against Huawei, who gained 4 percent compared to last year. OPPO also gained ground, racking around 1.4 percent growth compared to last year’s numbers.

Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner blames incremental innovation at the high end, as well as price increases as the main culprit of slowing sales of more premium brands, since more people are now holding on to their phones for longer than ever before.

“Apple has to deal not only with buyers delaying upgrades as they wait for more innovative smartphones, but it also continues to face compelling high-price and midprice smartphone alternatives from Chinese vendors. Both these challenges limit Apple’s unit sales growth prospects,” Mr. Gupta said.

“Although Samsung is strengthening its smartphone offering at the mid-tier, it continues to face growing competition from Chinese brands that are expanding into more markets. It also faces difficulty bringing significant innovation to high-end smartphones,” Mr. Gupta adds.

The data is clear: people are tired of paying insane prices for top tier devices that only have incremental improvements over the previous model.