Windows Phone growing in China?
WMPU and WPDang are reporting that there’s possibly a ‘steep growth’ for Windows Phone in China (and thus by extension, Nokia Lumia).
Windows Phones were only officially introduced into the country in March 2012, and one can see the graph tilting up sharply after this.
It is of note that the revelation that Windows Phone 7.5 devices will not be upgraded to Windows Phone 8 in June 2012 has not slackened this growth at all.
http://wmpoweruser.com/chinese-windows-phone-market-analysed-shows-steep-growth/
Apparently Nokia is reaping the rewards and have taken 76% of the install base for WP in China.
The best selling WP is the cheap Lumia 610, followed by the 800 and then 710.
Cheers Janne for the tip!
Category: Nokia
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Whatever, WP don’t support eastern languages anyway.
/s
not yet maybe
Yeah, luckily we were told by people here who _know_ that the WP UI could never work with Japanese, Chinese etc. and that WP could never enter the Chinese market.
/s
yeah WP is doing great in china, we also been told it was outselling Iphones.
OOO and BTW 1.2 Million is apparently less than what Nokia sold of N9′s in china.
According to what sources? If you have them then post them otherwise you’re just specualting.
Or you could just try beign a little less negative. If you can.
Anyway, I’m not surpised the 610 is selling well as compared to similarly priced Android phones it’s a far better and smoother proposition. Nokia should focus more on low cost WP handsets and less on the pointless Asha range.
“pointless Asha range”???? The only thing in nokia turning a profit??? WOW you WP fans area completely out of this world.
The sources I can not reveal, but its not hard to guess this numbers, just for example use the track and protect n9 1 Million registered users.
Yeah I have that N9 track and protect, most of the features don’t even work, what the heck is the deal with that?!
What about it doesn’t work, works fine here…
You’ve never been a real user of it anyway, only a spectator, only ever mildly interested, not heavily into lever-aging it as much as possible.
That was Mark’s opinion, not some “WP fan” opinion.
I think I’m a little bit of a WP fan after my positive experiences with it, but no way do I think Asha is pointless. It may become pointless at some point but hopefully not for years. I’m hoping Nokia World brings us some nice Asha news too.
Yeah, Asha is great for the next year, three or more. It is Nokia’s supporting structure right now, Nokia’s spine if you will.
Yeah you are correct was a bit of a stretch, just that the statement was so absurd that It kinda made me jump, but You are right now all WP fans think Asha is a bad thing.. Sorry
Yeah sorry Mark but saying Asha is pointless is ridiculous. I don’t use Asha phones myself, but I understand just how IMPORTANT and how BIG of deal they are. They are a BIG improvement over previous S40 phones. They offer a pretty modern and intuitive interface, a fast browser thanks to cloud compression, and very strong software support and exclusives from Nokia and friends, example the 40 free EA games loaded on Asha 305 and 311.
The Asha phones offer a smartphone-like experience for feature phone prices. Even the cheapest Chinese Android phones can’t compete on price or experience of the Asha phones.
Meant to say *user experience
Yes, the pointless Asha range.
Who on earth wants an S40 phone when you can get an Android for the same price or less? Once again the game has changed and Nokia have failed to keep up.
How in the name of any Diety is nokia to become more competitive in Asha price range with WP limited hardware/feature sport plus paying license fees????
or are you rooting for meltemi that would indeed help nokia in those areas I would agree with you there, but wp??? no makes no sense just the license alone is more than the per device profit here, not to mention the absolute inadequacy of the feature list in WP 7 and the markets were this devices are sold.
Please show me these magical Android phones that you can get for the same price as an Asha 305. They don’t exist at the 305 price range.
He’s right. Get the figures for N801T.
Your source. You get them.
It begins, the ones who argued that Asha’s were a better approach than Meltemi* will start to see statements like this more & more, until it eventually becomes the company approach & the view of most.
It needn’t have have been “inevitable” that Nokia jettison it’s last OS/ecosystem, with S40 it is…
*& weren’t necessarily WP-only wolves in disguise
Yes, 1.2m is a small number still. Does not name the ridiculously confident comments that wp can NEVER EVER NEVER work in Chinese or enter the Chinese market any more reasonable.
so you consider 1.2 M in the worlds biggest word smart phone market working? wow you know that less than 0.5% of the Chinese smartphone installed market don’t you???
THats good for Nokia. I also read recently that Android control 76% of the chinese market while iOS had another 13%.
I dont see nokia making a comeback in China at all. Android is free and random oems from all corners of china will make android devices cheaply.
It will be interesting to see how it all play out. My bet is on android in China. I could see 80% market share with the momentum Android has before Nokia even launches a Windows phone 8 device
Except that when Chinese people make a little more money they simply don’t buy Chinese brands because even Chinese people are weary of Chinese OEM “quality”. It’s not hard to understand because they make this stuff day in day out themselves so they know how bad Chinese OEM Androids are – just like if you talk to someone who works at McDonald and ask them when was the last time they ate something at McDonald they will probably they you they’ll never eat at McDonald again.
If Nokia can crack the budget phone market in China it will be of HUGE potential for revenue. Android will get some market for sure but it’s not because of Chinese OEM but premium phones like Samsung, but since Google isn’t officially operating in China I won’t be surprised that they’ll lose to the better Windows ecosystem shortly.
What??
Samsung is a strong brand in china. Wouldn’t more affluent people buy the Galaxy series. And i find it highly unlikely that Apple could even sue Samsung there so Android is free to roam China. If people become affluent enough they buy apple products.
Baidu released an android browser recently. Several chinese companies r forking android. Y? Bcuz this way chinese companies get full control and its totally legal. Open sourcing android was an incredible move. Sooner or late, Android will be on cameras, mp3 player and possibly 100 one laptop per child. Thats y microsfot cant win. U cannot beat free in poor countries.
I presume Android will conquer India just as easily
Er, “what” right back at you?
Your original claim is that because Chinese OEM can make cheap Android phones that they would win over China, my rebuttal is that this will not be the case because Chinese people don’t like their own products – which there is plenty of evidence of. Did you know that China is actually currently the worlds biggest consumer of luxury goods? And that there exist absolutely NO China luxury brands? That’s because as I said, when Chinese people make a little more money they immediately dump Chinese goods stuff they make themselves because they KNOW how crap they are, Chinese people simply don’t have faith and trust in most Chinese made products, which themselves don’t help by doing really crappy QC or even doing illegal stuff which is harmful such as exploding batteries, poisonous milk powder etc which they sell right back to themselves, this makes Chinese people distrust their own products almost as an instinct HUGELY and automatically go for foreign brands – Chinese people are some of the most superficially brand centric people in the world. Given the choice of a foreign branded phone such as Nokia WP phone or a cheap Chinese Android for roughly the same price I would bet 99% of Chinese would go for Nokia simply because “it isn’t Chinese”. As I said Android will get some market share for sure but it isn’t because Chinese OEM can make cheap phones it is because of premium brands like Samsung. But since even Samsung is “merely” Korean (yes the Chinese still think they are the most superior when it comes to yellow skin people), it WILL lose out to a Western brand like Nokia.
Free is not going to be a weapon in China because they are naturally weary of “poor (or even deadly) quality” especially by their own manufacturers (again, understand this by my McDonald example). China is very different to India where I think Indians are actually more proud of their own products and inventions. You have absolutely no idea how the current Chinese psychology works and your reasoning on why Android would win over China because of Chinese OEM is quite frankly laughable.
Lets just wait & see before we make grandiose predictions shall we, it’s far from certain that it’ll evolve towards your predictions.
On any level, WP has a huge way to go before it even become mildly competitive with Android there, wait (if) till we get there 1st.
It’s a known phenomenon that when Chinese people move up from low income to mid-low the first thing they do is shunt Chinese products – this is a well researched area. Read below:
http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/industry-insights/retail/no-love-at-home-for-made-in-china
This actually causes huge headaches for Chinese manufacturing business and government alike because as the world economy slows which slows export demand one of the supposed solution is to boost domestic demand of local products – but instead Chinese citizens turned to imports of foreign goods which doesn’t help the domestic economy one bit. So “cheap Chinese OEM Android devices” winning over the market? Not going to happen with the current Chinese shopping mentality.
It seems like a well-researched theory*, dont have the time nor interest to find competing evidence to formulate a competing one.
But the real evidence will be in the final results 18-months from now, if it still hasn’t made sizable in-roads (& yes WP’s been in market long enough by then), then so much for the theory.
*although it does fly in the face of co’s like Meizu & Xioami (spelling might be off) which have stared doing very well, lately.
No it doesn’t – Meizu and Xioami don’t make cheap OEM phones, they make high-spec phones with mid-range phones prices, and when those once flagship phones gets dated they discount them just like what the other OEMs in the world do. Meizu even has their own brick and mortar stores which mimics the Apple Store experience preciously to make themselves NOT appear cheap and rubbish. The way Meizu and Xioami operates takes the “Chinese don’t like cheap Chinese stuff because of fear of quality” lesson right to heart by building up an image of a luxury and quality brand.
Let me put it in another way – if you think that Android is going to win the Chinese market because OEMs have the ability to make Android phones which they can sell at 300RMB (~50USD) off contract because your reasoning is that “Chinese people are poor and would just buy the cheapest” then you are mistaken, and instead that sort of pricing would only push people away from the platform and into what is perceived as better quality “foreign goods” – whether it is a higher priced Samsung Android or Nokia WP who knows, but “dirt cheap” is NOT a sales point in China. That’s the point I’m making.
No I’m not thinking that, & I get the point…
I just dont agree that it immediately follows that they’ll go for better quality foreign WP, as opposed to better quality foreign x.
Or even that it necessarily follows that there’ll be huge trend away from local to foreign.
Local co’s are really starting to innovate over there now, it’s no longer just the sweatshop country it’s often perceived as in the West.
What on earth are you talking about…
Your theory is that they wont go for android because they’re all cheap crap or that they’re “too Chinese”.
The ones I mentioned are the antithesis of cheap crap, sure they’re not foreign, but they’re still capitalising on the Luxury item phenomena.
In many ways being totally home grown could be played-up as a strength, many Chinese are very nationalistic.
Not that I necessarily agree that your “theory” holds water anyway…
And I dont even agree that all of the major Android OEM’s make cheap crap that wont be attractive, or are too “Chinese” compared to Nokia/WP’s.
Many have lifted their game considerably, & many of Nokia’s phones are made (largely) in China anyway, many Chinese consumers would be acutely aware of that.
Again you are missing the point – the original poster I was replying to thinks that because with Android Chinese OEM can make dirt cheap devices and flood the market with all sorts of Android products and that will win the market because he thinks that Chinese people are poor and naturally will go for the cheapest option – I’m merely pointing it out that kind of reasoning is false.
Chinese people are price concious – but that does NOT mean they are cheap, it’s a HUGE difference in psychology and if businesses don’t get it its a ticket to irrelevance. Again just read the article I linked to and I quote “Chinese shoppers are often fiercely patriotic, but it appears many have little regard for the Made in China label.” and “In the electronics industry, a foreign brand name also carries a premium, even if the product is made in China.” – it is NOT my theory but a well known phenomenon of Chinese customers, it may appear paradoxical but humans aren’t rational and that’s just the fact of the Chinese consumer mentality.
Also again as I pointed out the Chinese OEM you mention are going for a luxury image priced at a middle range, they are NOT flooding the market with direct cheap disposable products because that would only ruin their brand – so again their products are high spec at middle range prices and they stay completely away at the bottom end, again it is evidence for this phenomenon which goes against the original poster’s reasoning of how Android would win the Chinese market.
Okay, that’s nice, good day.
http://mynokiablog.com/2012/09/03/windows-phone-growing-in-china/comment-page-1/#comment-646891
Please not that this is not the total amount of windows phones in China, this is the install base for a gaming platform.