Many of us would not be surprised when told of the success of Huawei and OPPO in Australia in recent times. New research from Roy Morgan has confirmed that smartphone devices from Chinese-owned Huawei and OPPO are the fastest growing brands within the Australian marketplace.
The research shows that the number of Australian’s owning a Huawei device increased 87% to 471,000, up from the previous 12 month period of 251,000. That’s an extra 220,000 Huawei users between 2016 and 2018 alone.
Rival handset maker, OPPO, which has been in the Australian market for just over four years, has also grown quite rapidly to become Australia’s seventh most widely used mobile brand with 368,000 Aussies now owning an OPPO device. Though it is important to note that OPPO and Huawei are more popular with Millennials and Generation Z, under half of Australians with mobile phone handsets – about 45% – are Millennials or Generation Z.
While the growing popularity of OPPO and Huawei branded devices being used by Australians is growing faster than any other leading handsets currently, they both still remain quite well behind the two market leaders – Samsung and Apple. According to the Roy Morgan research, Apple’s iPhone devices are the most widely held and owned handsets in the Australian marketplace with over 8.6 million Australians owning an iPhone, which is a 16$ increase of the previous research period.
While Samsung Galaxy devices are used by 5.6 million Australians in 2018, the research shows that it has remained virtually unchanged since the last period. Although it might be unchanged and with the growing number of OPPO and Huawei devices in the wild, this could see Samsung possibly knocked off as the top Android manufacturer.
In analysing the data, Michele Levine, Chief Executive Officer of Roy Morgan, has said that:
Chinese smartphone handset maker Huawei has been in the news for all sorts of reasons in recent weeks and months however the performance of Huawei in the competitive Australian handset market reveals Huawei, along with rival Chinese firm OPPO, is making significant inroads.
The recent controversies surrounding Huawei, which is also a significant manufacturer of important network infrastructure, are a concern for the company as it seeks to continue its strong growth in the Australian mobile phone handset market.
You can read the full Roy Morgan research here.
Huawei and OPPO are both making some decent devices these days with their hardware close to unsurpassed at times but is that enough to sway Australian consumers to switch? Can you see Huawei or OPPO overtaking those above it? What do you think they need to do to do that?
