2018 China tech review: look back at a year when gaming was whacked, AI moved ahead and technology took centre stage in trade war
- The big players in e-commerce met new challengers in the form of companies like Pinduoduo
- Apple’s weak iPhone sales also dragged down the performance of its assembler Foxconn
While 2018 may be coming to an end, the ups and downs of China’s tech scene are not even close to taking a breather. This year witnessed the continued ascendance of Chinese smartphone brands, wider deployment of Artificial Intelligence technology, e-commerce moving offline, and the first roll out of China’s home grown electric cars. On the downside, there has been a reversal of fortunes in the once high-flying cryptocurrency world, escalating government controls over games, the humbling of companies in the sharing-based economy, and Chinese technology giants caught in the vortex of a Sino-US trade war.
Here are some of the big China tech stories from the past year.
Smart moves
Chinese smartphone brands gained market share, elevated brand awareness and enhanced their design capacity, to achieve gains both at home and overseas.
After smaller brands were edged out of the mainstream market during the year, the Chinese smartphone market was dominated by the top four local brands: Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi, which now control a combined market share of nearly 80 per cent.
Apple, at fifth spot in China with a market share below 10 per cent, is losing ground because the company has been pricing its new models at the high end to maintain its margins amid slowing handset sales.
