COMPETITION DRIVING SMARTPHONE AND PC GAMING INNOVATION, BUT WHO IS WINNING?

Australia’s smartphone market is undergoing change, Chinese brands Oppo and Huawei are desperately looking to grow share, at the same time retailers are reluctant to range their product offering.

The Company that should be up there with Apple and Samsung is Huawei with their P20 Pro. This is an excellent smartphone that comes with the all new Kirin 980 engine.

Analysts have Huawei overtaking Apple in global smartphone rankings for the second quarter this year. Latest figures from Gartner puts Huawei ahead in terms of Q2 end user sales.

Overall, Gartner says sales of smartphones to end users jumped 2% in the quarter, reaching 374 million units.

Analysts peg the Chinese smartphone maker with a 13.3% market share, saying it sold ~49.8M devices in the quarter, up from 9.8% the year before— ahead of Apple, which it calculates took an 11.9% market share (down from 12.1% in Q2 2017), selling ~44.7M iPhones.

Both Huawei and Oppo are also keen to get a seat at the premium smartphone table but it is going to be tough for these two brands in Australia.

The recently launched Galaxy Note 9 has smashed all records for a premium Samsung phone while Oppo has resorted to mechanical pop-up cameras to grab share away from Apple and Samsung, the two market leaders.

At the same time, questions are being asked as to whether Sony is exiting the Australian smartphone market.

Also struggling is HTC who at the value end are under pressure from Australia’s #3 smartphone brand Alcatel. Owned by Oppo arch rival TCL, this Company has used the big IFA show in Berlin to release a new low-cost BlackBerry smartphone that has all the security features that BlackBerry became famous for.

In September, Apple is set to release three new iPhones including a budget model which could strip share away from the likes of Nokia - who are still struggling - and LG and Samsung.

In the PC gaming market, brands that are powering ahead are Acer with their Predator offering, and MSI who are well known for their over engineered gaming machines.

These two brands are locked in head to head battles with HP, Alienware and Lenovo and when this happens the big winner is the consumer, as each brand looks to out do each other with cutting edge new technology.

Overall, competition is driving innovation and in this issue of SmartHouse we have opened the door to several new smartphone and gaming PC products, as well new sound gear that is hitting the market.