Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is gearing up to gain greater market share in China against the mighty rivals like Samsung and domestic players. The iPhone maker has titled China its biggest technology market of the future.
China Mobile to provide significant backing
Recently, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and China Mobile entered into a deal, which would give significant traction to Apple, in the Chinese market. China Mobile has a customer base of 760 million, but for years it has not provided iPhones on the network because of some commercial terms and conditions.
China Unicom and China Telecom already sell iPhones, and China Mobile will start offering the product from Friday. According to the analysts, the customer base of China Mobile and Apple would increase by millions. However, Apple has lagged behind other rivals considerably in offering its devices on China Mobile, which will hurt its target of dominating the Chinese turf.
Consultancy Analysys International claims that Apple has a wide user base of loyal fans in China, but Samsung commands 18% market share, thus ruling the market over there. The consultancy notes that the launch of iPhones just two weeks before the Chinese New Year would work in favor of China Mobile as well as Apple. However, Kevin Wang, director of China research for consultancy IHS iSuppli believes that Apple has a challenging road ahead.
The analyst notes that China mobile would provide significant backing to the Apple sales and market share in the country, but the company would not be able to come in top three due to neck breaking competition in the smartphone market. Wang said that smartphones priced at 1,000 yuan ($164) are the most sought after phones.
Tough competition from local players
In China, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was at the sixth place, in terms of market share, for mobile devices and six domestic companies were ahead of it by offering the Android based low priced devices to the customers.
“The domestic high-end smartphone market is much more diversified and competitive now, leaving users more choices,” said Wang Jun, an analyst for Beijing-based Analysys. The analyst added that Apple is expected to escalate one or two steps ahead in the market ranking, but it is quite unlikely to gain third or fourth position in the ranking.
Lenovo, a Chinese company, which is better known for its PCs worldwide, and acquiring IBM’s personal computer business, holds the second position. Other than Lenovo, two companies Huawei and ZTE are also in the top five lists, according to Analysys.
