Why Your Next Phone could be a H, X, O, V and 1

If you are like most people, you probably used Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson phones 10 years ago. Some five years ago, you started to use smartphones and your brands have shifted to Apple, Samsung, LG, HTC and Sony.

But your next phone could be a China brand starting with these letters: O, V, H, X and 1. Time for you to get familiar with these names: Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus, Huawei or Xiaomi.

Of course, iPhone users don't care and will continue to use iPhones. But Android guys are starting to switch away from Samsung, LG and Sony. Just look at the declining sales of these top 3 companies in 2016 and you'll know what I'm talking about. (Samsung Galaxy S7 is an exception, but Samsung's market share has declined from 33% in 2013 to 22% now).

Essentially, Chinese manufactures like OnePlus, Oppo, Xiaomi, Huawei, Vivo are now making some of the best phones on the market. They are seeing high growth rates unseen by other players. For example, Oppo saw 79% growth in sales in first half of 2016. But the Chinese phones are not just selling well, they are also well received.

The Xiaomi Mi 5 recently beat the Sony Xperia X, the latest handset from the company, in a benchmarking test that pits the processor, memory, and screen against each other.

Smaller companies, like Huawei and OnePlus, both based in China, have undercut Samsung by selling cheaper phones that have hardware that runs Android well enough for most people.

OnePlus, for example, has already brought its phones to the US and Europe. The company started out with a waiting mechanism that put customers in a queue, but that had to be dropped when demand became too high and people were left disappointed.

Interestingly, the company paid $300,000 for its phones to appear in House of Cards, the Netflix Original TV drama that is watched by million of Americas. This kind of placement shows that even a smaller company like OnePlus—which, according to LinkedIn, has 209 employees—is eager to expand quickly.

In short, China smartphones are selling at half or less the price of Apple and Samsung but with specifications that could be higher than all other players. For example, Huawei has a 6GB RAM phone, while Oppo R9 Plus has front and back cameras at 16 MP.

Read my other article about Oppo at my blog here