Smartphones in China: market overview

February 2010 | 14 pages | ID: S0CCC163B69EN
Ovum

Abstracts

The three Chinese operators have been readying their smartphone portfolios and services since the 3G licences were awarded in 2009. Here we analyse the different smartphone strategies of China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, and assess the challenges and opportunities presented by the emerging smartphone market.

Contents

Executive summary
In a nutshell
Ovum view
Key messages
Challenges and opportunities
China Mobile has an early lead, but needs to raise awareness of OPhone brand
Pricing and subsidies are critical in this market
China will benefit from industry-wide focus on low-cost smartphones
China’s censorship system could prevent international vendors from penetrating the Chinese market
Smartphone competition in the Chinese market
Operator strategies for smartphones
OPhone: home-grown by China Mobile
iPhone and GPhone: China Unicom’s hope
RIM’s BlackBerry: China Telecom’s first step
Comparison of OPhone and iPhone
3G showed strong growth in 4Q09
SWOT analysis
China Mobile
  Strengths
  Weaknesses
  Opportunities
  Threats
China Unicom
  Strengths
  Weaknesses
  Opportunities
  Threats

List Of Tables

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: OPhone on China Mobile versus iPhone on China Unicom
Table 2: 3G development by China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom

List Of Figures

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: China’s mobile operators compared
Figure 2: Current OPhone models
Figure 3: UI comparison of the OPhone and iPhone