According to ZDC China smartphone brand awareness report in March 2014, the number of smartphone manufacturers in China dropped 7 to 98 but the models only dropped 10. Neither global nor Chinese smartphone manufacturers launched new catchy models in March.
Samsung ranked the first in smartphone brand awareness ranking, with 20.1%. Followed by Apple and Huawei with 14.4% and 8.8% awareness respectively. Nokia and Coolpad ranked the third and fourth, but their difference was quite small.
Compared with February, there were eight brands’ ranking changed in March 2014. The top five’s ranking remained unchanged, however, Samsung, Nokia and Coolpad’s brand awareness dropped slightly. Apple and Huawei’s went up a little. HTC, OPPO and ZTE’s rankings all went up by one place, and Xiaomi replaced Motorola to be the top 15 brands.
For product awareness, in March, Apple’s iPhone 5S (16GB) topped with 5.1% awareness, growing 0.5% compared to last month. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 and iPhone 5 ranked the second and third.
Apple had four models on the list, highest of all manufacturers. Samsung, Huawei Honor, HTC and Nokia all had two models on the list.
The data showed that 10 out of top 15 models came into market in 2013, 3 new models were launched in 2014 and the other two were launched in 2011 and 2012. Only one model’s price was below 1000 yuan (USD 162).
For China smartphone price awareness, in March, models with price below 1000 yuan (USD 162) gained a big increase to 19.9%. While models with 1000 to 2000 yuan (USD 162-324) dropped to 28%, but it still had the highest awareness.
Android OS remained the number one with 78.2% awareness, but it dropped 1.3% compared to last month. iOS grew by 2.1 percentage points in March, reaching 14.4%. Windows Phone dropped 2% monthly.
Quad-core smartphone gained most awareness in March 2014, with 56.6%. And dual-core smartphone had 30% awareness, remained the same as last month.
ZDC data showed that models with 5.1-5.5 screen size had 18.1% awareness, increasing 3.2 percentage points. Smartphone with 4.6-5.0 screen size remained the dominant models, but its awareness dropped 0.8% slightly.
Smartphone with over 10 megapixel camera’s awareness increased to 38.1%, growing 1.6 percentage points. Smartphone with 8/8.7 megapixel camera had the highest awareness of 41.2%.
Smartphone with 2000-3000 mAh had the highest awareness of 51.7%.
Case Study
Samsung’s brand awareness in March was 20.1%, though still ranking the top but its advantage was decreasing. Its brand awareness kept dropping since January, industry competition brought more and more pressure on market leader Samsung.
Samsung had 122 models on market, among which 31 models were blow 1000 yuan (USD 162). Models with 3000-4000 yuan (USD 485-647) and over 4000 yuan (USD 647).