Sober nature will drive Chinese smartphone brands to be global champions

Lots of excitement has been generated this past week by the annual Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances at the Messe Berlin exhibition center, where Chinese tech giants, ZTE and Huawei included, ignited a lot of the enthusiasm with out-of-the-box tech gismos.

The rise of Chinese tech brands, not only at home, but globally including in the European market, has fanned the flames of speculation over an acceleration in the dismantling of Apple’s dominance in the tech world. This seems to be the case in the smartphone sector – which Apple redefined back in 2007 when Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone – considering that Chinese phones pose a threat, initially in terms of shipments, and increasingly in terms of product quality perception.

At this year’s IFA, ZTE and Huawei showcased their new phones – the ZTE Axon 7 Mini, and the Huawei Nova and Nova Plus, respectively – in an attempt to defy the overall smartphone market slowdown globally and, more importantly, to further lift the brand of Chinese phones in Europe.

At this stage, it is no longer about purely touting the affordability of Chinese tech brands or Chinese-made iPhone lookalikes, but instead making the effort to convince users in the European market that phones from Chinese brand names live up to their claims of being affordable premium.

With the newly unveiled phones, coming in with compelling functions yet at cheaper prices than Apple’s iPhones, the two Chinese firms are grabbing some of the attention away from Apple who just introduced its next-generation iPhone on Wednesday.

Nevertheless, it’s still not time for Apple’s Chinese rivals to claim victory as they have yet to prove their capabilities in dominating Apple across the board. Some Chinese industry watchers are more sober-minded in this regard, even though the likes of ZTE and Huawei have already moved above Apple in some European countries in smartphone sales. 

“Apple’s announcement of the iPhone 7 will certainly be the biggest event for the [smartphone] industry, regardless of what others say,” Zeng Xuezhong, CEO of ZTE Mobile Devices, said in an interview with the Global Times on September 2 at his company’s booth at the IFA show, a few days before Apple’s annual September event. Unlike many other phone makers that actively participate in big events such as the IFA to attract interest in new products, the iPhone maker has focused on its own events that never fail to make headlines.

A massive number of users will still buy the new iPhone, despite the expectation that only minor improvements will be featured on the new phone, Zeng said, although he claims to be fairly confident that the Axon 7 Mini will offer a superior audio experience.

There’s no reason for the Chinese phone maker to belittle the importance of its own brand. Instead, it is believed that this soberness will ultimately drive Chinese tech brands to be truly global champions some day.

While some Chinese smartphone brands have come close to equaling, or have outsmarted, the iPhone in some aspects of functionality such as camera capabilities and audio experience, and in some parts of the world, it must be admitted that Apple remains to hold the lead across the board, especially with their phone operating system that is believed to be more user-friendly and reliable.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. [email protected]