Roberta pointed that Chinese vendors’ cost advantage allows them to push affordable, but more sophisticated midtier offerings, while increasing their brand awareness. However, in the midterm Chinese vendors will be under pressure to improve profitability, and the possibility of some level of consolidation amongst Chinese vendors cannot be excluded.

To improve margins, Chinese vendors need to break through the premium smartphone segments to address replacement buyers who have bought iPhones and other high-end Android smartphones in the past, in both developing and mature markets.

Some Chinese vendors actively promoted more premium offerings outside China in 2015, but if they want to crack the high-end smartphone market they need to improve their brand value and user loyalty, and demonstrate a clear and differentiated device experience that goes beyond just price and features.

In addotion, Roberta Cozza also growth in the smartphone market to come mostly from emerging markets. Basic and lower-end smartphones will account for two-thirds of smartphone sales by 2019; in the same year, only 20 percent of smartphone sales will come from mature markets.

This shows that there is still an opportunity for mobile manufacturers to penetrate the lower- tier segments in some geographies, such as emerging Asia/Pacific and EMEA, as users continue to shift from feature phones to smartphones. We have witnessed Indian and Chinese players within these regions — such as, Micromax, Xiaomi, Huawei, Intex, Oppo and BBK Electronics — benefit from increased demand for affordable smartphones.

And immersive experiences such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) capabilities to be another key theme in 2016.