Comment by tooltalk
I'm surprised that Samsung managed to stay #1 globally for so long after forced out of China, after Xi's rise to power in 2013.
I'm surprised that Samsung managed to stay #1 globally for so long after forced out of China, after Xi's rise to power in 2013.
Sure, I'm actually old enough to remember Huawei's Ascend sold under MetroPCS in the US back in the early 2010's. Leica collaboration with Huawei in 2016 worked wonders and other Chinese smartphone makers definitely stepped up, but, by this time, Samsung's China sales fell off the cliff by ~70+% to a low single-digit market share from its 20% peak in 2013 under Xi's "In China, For China" campaign.
Not sure if Huawei was ever a threat to Samsung or Apple outside China as most of Huawei's growth was in China only and there was no other single major market in which Huawei came close to Apple's or Samsung's. China is also the only major market where Samsung's market share is less than 1% and I'm very disinclined to believe this is coincidence. I think the common misconception is that Samsung was "outcompeted" by Huawei when it was in fact forced out of China. This practice became quite common in other industries too after Xi -- eg, all foreign competitors in EV batteries business such as LG, Panasonic, Samsung, etc were also effectively banned in China under Xi's Made-In-China 2025, launched in 2015 to protect local "champions," such as CATL/BYD.
Samsung share was dropping in PRC before Xi, i.e. when cheap domestic brands started eating the bottom. Samsung flagship was still popular, i.e. the low single digit highend, then the Note battery recall drama happend and basically THAAD right after and the double whammy basically killed Samsung in PRC. Now do I think Samsung could have recovered and held on like Apple with domestic competition, probably not, samsung not as sticky as life style choice.
Before Huawei sanction global shipments went from 100m to 200m in like 4 years (double digit YoY growth) while samsung was declining from 300m in same time period. Everyone saw which way the trend lines was going, especially in HW flagships.
MIC2025 is like for establishing nascent industries, i.e. your batteries example. PRC companies get whitelist/subsidies for a few years then opens to foreign players after CATL becomes incumbant. Samsung mobile doesn't fit MIC2025 pattern since PRC already established phone manufacturing before MIC2025 started, entire low&high spectrum by 2015. It's not some strategic industry being spun up from 0, they already knew everything about phone production from Foxconn. There's no reason to force Samsung out of PRC, domestic phones already got CATLized and was outcompeting Samsung by then. Also it's not like Samsung was formally "kicked out", they left after seeing same writing on the wall. If Samsung got kicked out, like even informally, there'd be transition plan, i.e. get a local player to take over Huizhou company seen in other MIC2025 plays. Factories don't sit idle. Instead Samsung picked up and left and basically Huizhou become ghost towned.
All smartphone manufacturers were in China when Xi started shaking down the industry back in 2013 under the banner of "In China, For China." Samsung has diversified away and to Vietnam and India since, but I don't think we want to have a supply-chain all consolidated in one location/country.
I'm otherwise of opinion that the West's decisive counter measures are necessary against China's mercantile practices.
Well huawei ban bought samsung sometime, scared PRC brands from expanding into north american market. TBH Samsung was still pretty dominant until PRC brands really turned dial on hardware while Samsung stagnated until they couldn't. The latest round of hardware is pretty good, as in PRC flagship parity worthy. TBH the Koreans are very talented, they don't have the numbers to keep up with PRC speed / product cycles, but if they can iterate proper flagship every other year, they'd be in a good place. Also not putting ads on fridges.