Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Sept 7, 2015 (I)

choi

(1) Bruce Einhorn, The Cheap Phones Quietly Winning the US.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/ar ... ly-winning-the-u-s-

Quote:

“The [smartphone ZTE] Maven’s draw, really, is price. Without any subsidies from a wireless carrier, the phone costs just $60. And it’s not even one of the company’s cheaper models. ZTE is quietly becoming a force in the US by selling good enough phones at low prices—smaller prepaid smartphones for $30, basic phones with QWERTY keyboards for about the same, and so on.

"(Verizon doesn’t carry them.) ZTE claimed about 8 percent of America’s smartphone market in the second quarter of this year, says researcher IDC, up from 4.2 percent in the first quarter of 2014. That ranks the company fourth among smartphone makers overall, behind Apple, Samsung, and LG.
  
"American officials 'made it clear that phones weren’t a concern.' [quoting Lixin Cheng, head of ZTE’s US operations] So while Huawei essentially moved out of the US, shifting the North American focus of its networking equipment business to Canada, ZTE began concentrating on smartphones.

"it’s doing much better in the US than Chinese powerhouses such as Lenovo, which has seen its share of the market drop from 5.3 percent to 3.1 percent since the first quarter of 2014. Chinese leader Xiaomi, which is focused on emerging markets such as India and Brazil, has avoided the US so far.

"ZTE’s next challenge in the US will be translating higher sales into higher revenue. While its US market share has nearly doubled since early 2014, quarterly revenue is up 4 percent, from $354 million to $369 million, according to IDC. That means ZTE has gained share only by making its phones cheaper. And it doesn’t have the home market to fall back on: The company is No. 8 in China with just 3 percent of the market, down from 10 percent in 2012, according to researcher Canalys. The nation’s stock meltdown has carved 36 percent from ZTE’s Hong Kong-listed share price since its June peak, leaving its market value at $10.3 billion.

Note:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: China’s once embattled ZTE almost doubles its share in US market
(b) ZTE Maven (released in June 2015; Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 400)


(2) A window two pages down from the above report:

“$44b   Samsung Electronics’ loss in market value since April.  The company’s profits have fallen for five quarters, its longest losing streak since 1983.

The underlying segment points to the following: “Samsung’s smartphone share has been squeezed between iPhones and Cheaper Chinese models