Bottom line: LeEco and Coolpad could see a brief surge in smartphone sales due to strong promotional efforts, but will rapidly fade when consumers realize its models are the same as many other products on the market.
Coolpad gets new CEO
Just a day after the release of new data showing the surging Oppo was close to stealing China’s smartphone crown from a stumbling Huawei, sector newcomer and online video superstar LeEco (Shenzhen: 300104) is talking up new sales targets that imply it believes it can win the title as soon as next year. That’s quite big talk for a company that only entered the smartphone business last year and has never finished among the top 5 vendors for China. But LeEco CEO Jia Yueting has never been afraid of making such bold predictions, following a Chinese tradition that has seen similar big talk come from most of the nation’s other major smartphone makers. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: The latest quarterly smartphone data show Oppo could soon take China’s smartphone crown from Huawei, whose rapidly slowing sales could cause it to badly miss its 2016 target.
Oppo closes in on China smartphone crown
Recent trends in China’s fiercely competitive smartphone market are accelerating in the latest quarterly data, led by a plunge in sales and market share for Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and sharply slowing growth for local leader Huawei. At the same time, the surging Oppo continues its meteoric rise to cement its position as China’s second largest smartphone maker, as it closes in on Huawei.
All that said, the smartphone crown for China, the world’s biggest market, is shaping up to be quite a hot potato that changes hands often. Just 3 years ago that title belonged to Samsung (Seoul: 005930), which was later supplanted by Xiaomi, a former superstar that barely made the top 5 in the newly released second-quarter rankings from IDC. (press release) Apple has also briefly held the title, only to be overtaken last year by current leader Huawei. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: LeEco’s rescue plan for Coolpad will fail due to stiff competition in China’s smartphone markets and overly ambitious targets for its own new line of smartphones.
LeEco ousts Coolpad CEO
Less than 2 months after becoming the largest stakeholder of Coolpad (HKEx: 2369), online video sensation LeEco (Shenzhen: 300104) is wasting no time in making major changes at the struggling smartphone maker. The most symbolic of those has LeEco’s dynamic founder Jia Yueting ousting Coolpad’s chairman and CEO and taking over the chairman’s position for himself. More substantially, LeEco is indicating it will become Coolpad’s largest customer going forward as part of its own plans to build an entertainment ecosystem around devices like Internet-connected smartphones, TVs and cars. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Qualcomm’s new licensing deal with Oppo extends a recent upbeat trend for the company in China after a yearlong retrenchment, and will be followed by more similar deals through the rest of this year.
Qualcomm in licensing deal with Oppo
Following a difficult year in China that saw it fined a record amount for anti-competitive behavior, global telecoms chip leader Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) appears to be slowing regaining its footing in the world’s largest smartphone market. That’s my interpretation of the latest headline, which has the company announcing a new chip licensing deal with Oppo, one of the market’s fastest growing smartphone makers. Word of this latest deal almost certainly came from Qualcomm itself, which is eager to show its days of trouble in China are in the past. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Apple could be on the cusp of a prolonged China downturn unless it can roll out smartphones with new breakthrough technology, as it gets overwhelmed by similar Chinese models that sell for far lower prices.
Apple China sales tumble 33 pct in Q2
The latest financial report from Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) shows the company continues to struggle as sales of its core iPhones pass their prime, and nowhere is that story more apparent than in China. The company’s Greater China sales, which also includes Hong Kong and Taiwan, fell 33 percent in its latest reporting quarter, accelerating from an already sharp drop of 26 percent in the first 3 months of this year.
The rapid decline dropped China to Apple’s third largest market globally from its former spot as the company’s second largest, with Europe taking over the number two position. Apple’s story is hardly unique, as the world’s other global leader Samsung (Seoul: 005930) has also seen a sharp reversal over the last year after its own recent rise to take the global smartphone crown. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Xiaomi’s new move into notebook PCs looks like a necessary step toward its goal of creating an ecosystem of entertainment products and services, but is likely to suffer from weak reviews and stiff competition from established brands.
Xiaomi rolls out notebook PCs
I really want to write something positive about fading smartphone maker Xiaomi these days, but the company really isn’t giving us much suitable material with its steady string of new but uninspired products. The latest of those is a couple of new notebook PC models, marking its move into a crowded area where it will face stiff competition from established players like Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Lenovo (HKEx: 992), as well as new entrant Huawei.
One could argue that while Xiaomi is coming late to the notebook PC game, such a move is still necessary since such computers will be a critical component to the company’s dream of building an ecosystem of products and services around a range of interfaces like PCs, smartphones and TVs. And Xiaomi is still ahead of the more upward trending LeEco (Shenzhen: 300104), which likes the ecosystem idea so much that it actually changed its former name from LeTV to include this recent industry buzzword. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Huawei’s eroding profit margins and slowing smartphone sales growth reflect stresses being felt both at home and abroad in an overheated industry showing rapid signs of global saturation.
Huawei announces H1 results
The latest financial results from Huawei are showing how smartphones are at once becoming a growth engine but also a drag on the telecoms giant. The company’s fast-growing smartphone business was one of the main engines behind a 40 percent surge in sales during the first half of this year, as Huawei consolidated its position as the world’s third largest brand behind only Samsung (Seoul: 005930) and Apple(Nasdaq: AAPL). But at the same time, fierce competition in the sector also sharply eroded Huawei’s profit margins. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: New data shows Huawei’s smartphone sales growth slowed sharply in the second quarter, and the company will be lucky to log 20 percent annual growth due to saturation in its home China market.
Huawei smartphone growth slows sharply in Q2
The first of many reports for second-quarter smartphone sales has just come out, revealing one of the first declines in more than a year for the surging Huawei. At the same time, the new data from TrendForce show that surging Chinese brands Oppo and Vivo are also seeing rapid slowdowns in their recent breakneck growth. The bigger picture is that the global smartphone market is slowing sharply or even contracting after years of rapid growth, with global leaders Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Samsung (Seoul: 005930) also suffering big drops this year. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Huawei’s aggressive H2 targets for its Honor sub-brand hint that sales for its core Huawei smartphones may be stumbling, while rumors of a wave of executive departures at Smartisan also hint at dire financial conditions at the company.
Huawei calls on Honor to boost smartphone sales
New distress signals are coming from China’s overheated smartphone sector in the form of headlines involving leader Huawei and smaller niche player Smartisan. Before I detail the headlines, I should note that some may disagree with my interpretation, since neither news item directly confirms any trouble. But that said, nobody ever wants to admit to bad news, and in both cases the headlines appear to confirm earlier signs of stress at each company. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Reports of big sales target reductions could point to a looming slowdown for Huawei, as it tries to move out of low-end smartphones and into an increasingly saturated higher end of the market.
Huawei set for slowdown?
After posting phenomenal growth over the last year to become the world’s third biggest smartphone brand, China’s Huawei may be seeing a slowdown that’s reportedly prompting it to sharply cut its sales targets for this year. If the reports are true, the downward revision would mark a sudden reversal for Huawei, which has been posting sales growth in the 50-60 percent range since the middle of last year when its recent surge began. Such a shift would hardly be unprecedented in the fast-changing smartphone world, though it would come as a slight surprise since the company’s phones have become quite popular here in China, approaching the status of global superstar Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL). Read Full Post…
Bottom line: A Beijing court’s finding that Apple’s iPhone 6 infringed on a small company’s designs looks flawed, and the judge should be commended for allowing sales to continue pending an appeal of the case.
Beijing court rules against Apple in product design case
Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) is suffering what looks like yet another setback in China, with word that a Beijing court has found the iPhone maker guilty of stealing product designs from an obscure smartphone maker in south China. But a closer look at the reports shows that perhaps even the Beijing judge that made the ruling realizes how ridiculous the case is, and has allowed Apple to continue selling its iPhone 6 phones in China pending an appeal. Such an appeal is likely to take months or perhaps even a year, by which time iPhone 6 sales will probably be insignificant anyhow. Read Full Post…
