Who can break the Apple and Samsung duopoly?
Apple and Samsung effectively have a duopoly in the UK, with the two companies collectively controlling 74.4% of the market in the first quarter of 2018.
However, two Chinese companies have been putting pressure on Apple’s and Samsung’s dominance in the smartphone market – OnePlus and Huawei. Their latest flagship smartphones have much to recommend them, and executives from both companies have expressed confidence in their ability to challenge the industry’s leaders.
OnePlus
Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus recently launched its latest flagship phone to challenge the supremacy of Apple and Samsung. It has a significantly lower price than that of its two rivals.
The new OnePlus 6 has many of the main features offered by premium smartphones such as the Apple iPhone X and Samsung Galaxy S9+, including slow-motion video capabilities and dual cameras. However, retail prices start at £469 for the OnePlus 6, compared to £999 for the iPhone X and £869 for the Galaxy S9+.
Pete Lau, CEO of OnePlus, said that the goal of his company’s latest smartphone is to compete with the market leaders’ phones in terms of looks and performance.
“With the OnePlus 6, we challenged ourselves to deliver an external design as smooth and elegant as the work we’ve done inside the device,” he said.
“We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished, and we hope our users are too.”
The latest smartphone has the biggest screen of any OnePlus phone to date, measuring 6.28in. It is also the first OnePlus smartphone to feature glass as both the front and back panel. The OnePlus 6 comes with the Android 8.1 Oreo operating system installed, with its own OxygenOS launcher layered on top.
Huawei
Huawei has expressed confidence that it will continue to effectively challenge Apple and Samsung in the UK market and fight the increasing presence of other Chinese smartphone manufacturers in Europe. Its latest flagship smartphone, the P20 Pro, is competitively priced, with retail prices starting at £799.
Walter Ji, President of Huawei’s Western Europe Consumer Business Group, said that the strong sales performance of the P20 and P20 Pro smartphones show that the company has established itself as a major force in the smartphone market.
The Huawei P20 Pro was the first smartphone to feature a triple rear camera when it launched to rave reviews earlier this year.
“The UK is an important market; we’re not afraid to invest a lot because it’s a big market, and we’re quite confident because our device is so innovative,” said Ji, adding that the key to the company’s success is its focus on making improvements to its camera on its latest smartphones.
“We focus on consumer needs much more than any other brands. We call it meaningful innovation – for example, although [previous phones] the P9 and P10 had good cameras because of our collaboration to co-engineer them with Leica, we continued to survey the market,” he said.
Huawei now ranks as the third-largest smartphone manufacturer in Europe, only trailing Samsung and Apple.