IDC Senior Research Manager Joey Yen stated: “In terms of screen size, design, and hardware performance, there is no significant seperation, and driving manufacturers do not want to only make use of price competition. The only thing they can do is to place more emphasis on more refined topics and technological performance of specialized functions, such as double lens designs, performance in dynamic or static photography, rapid charging, battery capacities, and material methods.”

Statistically, in the 2016 smart phone market in Taiwan, the majority of first-line brands showed negative annual growth with Samsung coming out on top with the most shipments in Taiwan and a 22% lead over Apple.

Furthermore, this was the first time in Taiwan with the assistance of being in the first wave of new iPhone shipments that Apple came in second place with 20% of the market.

With the strong sales of the Zenfone 2 Laser and Zenfone 3, Asus took third place with 18% of the market, which was three percentage points ahead of HTC in fourth place. Meanwhile, with 9% of the market, Sony took the fifth place position.

It is also worth noting the dazzling recent performance of OPPO in Mainland China and globally, which surpassed Infocus, LG, and Xiaomi with a growth rate of 204% to occupy sixth place in the Taiwanese smart phone market.

Looking ahead to the 2017 smart phone market, because Taiwan has already entered the plateau state of a mature market and there are more competitors in the Android camp, if there are no specialized specifications, product topics, or brand advantages, they are bound to get mired in price wars, and it will be difficult to achieve massive growth of shipments.

However, the self-contained iOS will benefit from the market with expectations and topics pertaining to the 10th anniversary of the iPhone and become the only operating system to experience slight growth in 2017.

(TR/ Phil Sweeney)