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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 worke

by tooltalk 10mo ago

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.

maxglute 10mo ago
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.
- tooltalk 10mo ago
  >> Samsung share was dropping in PRC before Xi, ... the Note battery recall drama happend and basically THAAD right after ... << Sure, except that narrative has too many flaws. Samsung China's smartphone sales increased from 11M in 2011, to 30M in 2012, to about 60+M in 2013 -- no such "drop" before Xi's rise. Then it cratered as Xi's anti-foreign "In China, For China" policy went in full swing. By 2016, Samsung's China sales figure was already down to just over 10M -- the Note 7 and THAAD were likewise inconsequential and Samsung smartphone sales continued to slide in China and China only. During this time between 2016-2017, Samsung's global sales continued to maintain its lead at around 310M even as its Chinese competitors, such as Huawei struggle against Samsung outside China without protection from Xi. Again, this conspicuous drop was in China only and there was no sudden change in consumer preference or product offering, as evident from Samsung's global sales -- ie, while Samsung China sales was down, it was up elsewhere. Xi's mercantile policies and the rising nationalism in China were the only changing variables. Also it wasn't just Samsung alone either -- Apple was the next major foreign smartphone seller in China. Apple avoided Samsung's fate after Xi's rise in 2013 and Patrick McGee, a FT reporter, has recently released Apple in China: the Capture of the World's Greatest Company, meticulously detailing how Apple countered Xi's "For China, In China," but, by doubling down on China, Apple is in effect "captured" by Xi. see Chapter 26 "Despot" and on.
  - maxglute 10mo ago
    Looking at sales in 2010s mobile growth market is flawed. look at market share. 2010-2015 was mass smart phone proliferation, the demand denominator was expanding so companies can sell more phones while lose relative marketshare. Samsung PRC share peaked and started dropping right before/around when Xi entered office, i.e. domestic (budget) champions was grown before Xi, they were outcompeted before MIC2025 or battery/thaad drama. Samsung global sales stalled at ~300m and started dipping below (i.e. losing total sales and market share in growth market), again need to look at market share because denominator of global phone sales was exploding. Samsung Could had 40/50% of global sales 500m+ branded sales, instead Huawei+others jumped in and ate big chunk of Android pie, i.e. actual global Android shipments was like 1B, PRC brands including white labeled OEMs captured probably 50%+ of that. Huawei going from 0-200m phone sales abroad while Samsung stalling and even declining at ~300m when they had 500m+ to capture isn't Huawei struggling (aging double digit global YoY growth at the time), it's PRC brands gobbling up new demand at expense of Samsung. Samsung got short term boost after HW ban, then started stagnating again when budget PRC brands went flagship. Also there was huge change in product offering 2010-2015s in PRC, that's when domestic budget brands and then flagships proliferated. There's nothing sudden about any of this, Xi barely had any time in office to engineer some mass buy domestic movement, that only happened late 2010s across variety of domestic sectors. Patrick McGee / Apple in China is motivated writing. Trying to sell narrative Apple taught PRC everything they instead of you know 100,000s PRC tooling engineers and manufacturing specialistists trying to troubleshoot and scale Apple design. I don't know what Chapter 26 has to do with anything, IIRC it's mostly PRC making Apple kneel to PRC soveign internet, aka follow doemstic laws and Apple complied because they need PRC manufacturing. And doing so let Apple kept their share in PRC for another 20 years which wasn't bad return. And it's not even like Samsung left PRC, they had to pivot back to PRC ODMs (wingtech, huaqin) for ~100 of millions of low end devices (I htink the As and Ms) shortly after.

maxglute 10mo ago

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.

tooltalk 10mo ago
>> Samsung share was dropping in PRC before Xi, ... the Note battery recall drama happend and basically THAAD right after ... << Sure, except that narrative has too many flaws. Samsung China's smartphone sales increased from 11M in 2011, to 30M in 2012, to about 60+M in 2013 -- no such "drop" before Xi's rise. Then it cratered as Xi's anti-foreign "In China, For China" policy went in full swing. By 2016, Samsung's China sales figure was already down to just over 10M -- the Note 7 and THAAD were likewise inconsequential and Samsung smartphone sales continued to slide in China and China only. During this time between 2016-2017, Samsung's global sales continued to maintain its lead at around 310M even as its Chinese competitors, such as Huawei struggle against Samsung outside China without protection from Xi. Again, this conspicuous drop was in China only and there was no sudden change in consumer preference or product offering, as evident from Samsung's global sales -- ie, while Samsung China sales was down, it was up elsewhere. Xi's mercantile policies and the rising nationalism in China were the only changing variables. Also it wasn't just Samsung alone either -- Apple was the next major foreign smartphone seller in China. Apple avoided Samsung's fate after Xi's rise in 2013 and Patrick McGee, a FT reporter, has recently released Apple in China: the Capture of the World's Greatest Company, meticulously detailing how Apple countered Xi's "For China, In China," but, by doubling down on China, Apple is in effect "captured" by Xi. see Chapter 26 "Despot" and on.
- maxglute 10mo ago
  Looking at sales in 2010s mobile growth market is flawed. look at market share. 2010-2015 was mass smart phone proliferation, the demand denominator was expanding so companies can sell more phones while lose relative marketshare. Samsung PRC share peaked and started dropping right before/around when Xi entered office, i.e. domestic (budget) champions was grown before Xi, they were outcompeted before MIC2025 or battery/thaad drama. Samsung global sales stalled at ~300m and started dipping below (i.e. losing total sales and market share in growth market), again need to look at market share because denominator of global phone sales was exploding. Samsung Could had 40/50% of global sales 500m+ branded sales, instead Huawei+others jumped in and ate big chunk of Android pie, i.e. actual global Android shipments was like 1B, PRC brands including white labeled OEMs captured probably 50%+ of that. Huawei going from 0-200m phone sales abroad while Samsung stalling and even declining at ~300m when they had 500m+ to capture isn't Huawei struggling (aging double digit global YoY growth at the time), it's PRC brands gobbling up new demand at expense of Samsung. Samsung got short term boost after HW ban, then started stagnating again when budget PRC brands went flagship. Also there was huge change in product offering 2010-2015s in PRC, that's when domestic budget brands and then flagships proliferated. There's nothing sudden about any of this, Xi barely had any time in office to engineer some mass buy domestic movement, that only happened late 2010s across variety of domestic sectors. Patrick McGee / Apple in China is motivated writing. Trying to sell narrative Apple taught PRC everything they instead of you know 100,000s PRC tooling engineers and manufacturing specialistists trying to troubleshoot and scale Apple design. I don't know what Chapter 26 has to do with anything, IIRC it's mostly PRC making Apple kneel to PRC soveign internet, aka follow doemstic laws and Apple complied because they need PRC manufacturing. And doing so let Apple kept their share in PRC for another 20 years which wasn't bad return. And it's not even like Samsung left PRC, they had to pivot back to PRC ODMs (wingtech, huaqin) for ~100 of millions of low end devices (I htink the As and Ms) shortly after.