Chinese Smartphone User Evaluation: Domestic Brands Gaining Market Preference

​​Chinese Consumers Place Greatest Importance on Physical Appearance, Fit in Hand and Camera Performance

Boston, MA – October 07, 2015 – Led by Huawei and Xiaomi, domestic brands in China are gaining market share from global brands. More Chinese-branded Android-based smartphones are now providing greater usability for core daily features and are attracting consumers with innovations in industrial design and localized experiences. As more domestic devices come with improved build quality, high specs, and compelling user experiences, Chinese consumers are becoming more and more selective about the experiences and hardware they want for a price they are willing to pay.

Two new user evaluations from the Mobile Device UX group at Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanalytics.com) benchmarked six of the latest devices from Chinese domestic brands: Huawei, Xiaomi, ZTE, Lenovo, Meizu and Vivo. Participants placed greatest importance on the physical appearance, fit in hand and camera performance of the devices when considering purchase intention. Furthermore, participants were most attracted by new functionalities that make a smartphone more secure or provided instant access to the most used features. These included fingerprint scanners (Huawei Honor 7; Meizu MX5), eyeball recognition (Vivo X5 Pro) and frame gestures (ZTE Nubia Z9).

Click here for the reports: http://bit.ly/1OSskPR and http://bit.ly/1QU22ub

Alvin Wu, report author and Senior Analyst commented, “OEMs targeting Chinese consumers need to keep improving physical design in terms of size, new materials, color options, and shape. This is in addition to providing differentiating HMI features such as ZTE Nubia Z9’s Frame Gestures (FiT) and Huawei Honor 7’s Smart Key.”

Continued Wu, “As almost all top smartphones in China provide a display size of between 4.7 and 5.7 inches and consumers are using them for longer periods of time in any one session, the weight of the device and fit in hand will stay as the top purchase priorities and main factors that influence user experience. ”

Paul Brown, Director, Mobile Device UX, added “Domestic brands such as Xiaomi, Huawei, Lenovo and ZTE are providing enhanced localized experiences that truly meet the need of the Chinese smartphone consumer. Xiaomi’s Yellow Pages and life service features are deeply integrated into the device, making it highly convenient for consumers to top up mobile credit, find nearby places of interest or reject a spam call.”

About Mobile Device UX

Mobile Device UX forms part of the User Experience Innovation Practice (UXIP) at Strategy Analytics. Focusing on user behaviors, motivations and interests within in-vehicle, mobile device, connected home and media & services research areas, UXIP helps clients meet consumer needs, develop usable solutions and deliver compelling user experiences. Extensive expertise and highly experienced in large-scale survey work, in-depth interviews, focus groups and observational sessions, UXIP’s research methodology allows strategic user-centric analysis on the potential for new technologies that would otherwise be unavailable. Providing actionable insight, go-to-market strategies and business recommendations, UXIP is a leading supplier of consumer knowledge to the technology industry. Click here for more information