Three Chinese smartphone vendors — Huawei, Oppo and vivo — helped drive the global smartphone market in Q3. Together their shipment grew 60 percent while the overall global market just moved up six percent that quarter, according to Canalys.
The standout performer was Oppo, which had a stellar quarter, taking hold of the Chinese market from under the noses of its rivals. Its smart phone shipments grew around 40 percent sequentially and 140 percent year on year. Tough competition in China has affected Huawei’s global position, with it now looking increasingly unlikely that it will reach its annual shipment target of 140 million units.
Samsung continued to lead the market, but its issues with the Note 7 are starting to affect its business. It shipped just over 76 million units (excluding all Note 7s), down nine percent on the same quarter a year ago. In second place, Apple’s iPhone shipments also suffered an annual decline, falling five percent to just over 45 million units.

Huawei continues to retain resilience in a crowded and competitive global economic environment, aiming to become the top global smartphone vendor in five years’ time, according to ABI Research.
The Philippines smartphone market jumped 20 percent in Q1, according to IDC. With a projected annual growth of 25 percent this year, this makes the country the fastest growing smartphone market in Southeast Asia (SEA).


China Telecom Sichuan has launched the first commercial 4K ultra-HD iTV network service in China. It has teamed up with Huawei to release a 4K ultra-HD intelligent smart set top box, making China Telecom Sichuan the first telecommunications company in China to use 4K STBs for carrying video services.
Rising demand for broadband will spur economies in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC).
Even as mobile broadband modems and hotspot router shipments fell 21 percent year-on-year to nearly 73 million units, Huawei continued to lead the market with nearly 61 percent share. Together with fellow China company ZTE, the pair shipped more than 85 percent of all mobile broadband modems, according to ABI Research.
Samsung Electronics is the world’s top semiconductor buyer, and together with second placed Apple, increased their combined semiconductor demand by 17 percent in 2013, according to Gartner.
Telecom New Zealand has launched a new 4G LTE network that can provide speeds of up to 150 Mb/s to mobile subscribers in parts of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.




ZTE has overtaken Alcatel-Lucent to slot just behind leader Huawei in the global optical networking (ON) market. This is the first time that Chinese vendors are holding the top two ranks in ON, according to Ovum.
Samsung led the smartphone market as smartphones outshipped feature phones for the first time in Q1. According to IDC (see table below), Samsung not only maintained its pole position but widened its market share lead over Apple in the smartphone market.