I’ve been predicting for a while now that China’s booming smartphone sector was set for a rapid slowdown due to a rapid build-up last year, and now the latest sales data is showing that such a downturn may have begun in this year’s first quarter. Of course one quarter of data is hardly enough to declare the death of last year’s smartphone explosion, and we’ll have to see if the coming months continue a downtrend that saw China’s cellphone sales tumble 27 percent in the first 3 months of the year. Meantime, one of the industry’s top players ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063) has just launched yet another new sub-brand aimed at online buyers, reflecting the hyperactive state of competition and intense pricing pressure in the market. Read Full Post…
