2 Charts That Show Why Larger iPhones May Be a Big Deal for China, Bigger Pain for Samsung

By Marcus Chan

Photographer: Evrim Aydin/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Apple's iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6, launched on Sept. 19, 2014.

Big screens are a big deal for smartphone users in China. If it's any indication, reservations just to pre-order the new and larger iPhones may already be in the several millions, according to reports. And before Apple's latest devices were cleared for sale in the country, we know that black market demand was fueling high prices and sparking fistfights between rival resellers.
But pre-orders, premiums and punches aside, if you really want to know just how popular bigger-display smartphones are in the world's largest market, don't look at Apple. Instead, turn to the company's arch-rival, Google.
As you can see in the chart below on sales of devices running on Android, a whopping 78 percent of Chinese consumers bought smartphones with
screens 5 inches or larger in August, according to Counterpoint Technology Market Research. That's about double the percentage at the end of last year. Meanwhile, the category for Android smartphones with screens smaller than 5 inches made up 22 percent of sales in August. That's a steep drop from 60 percent in December.

Part of the popularity behind the larger-screen devices is the visible status symbol they provide, said Peter Richardson, research director for Counterpoint. But perhaps more importantly, the bigger displays "are simply better for content consumption during the long commutes that many people in the region undergo daily," he said.
With the iPhone 6 at 4.7 inches and iPhone 6 Plus at 5.5 inches, it will be interesting to see if sales of the two devices follow the trends in the Android market. Either way, with sales officially starting on Oct. 17, early enthusiasm for the bigger iPhones doesn't bode well for Samsung Electronics.
As Bloomberg News reporter Jungah Lee reported, the South Korean tech giant is heading into its roughest quarter in years as it faces new pressure in the high-end handset market from Apple's larger screens and continued pressure on the low-cost end from China's Xiaomi.
In the chart below, note how Samsung's devices dominated the list of most popular smartphones in China in September 2013. About a year later, not so much.

Source: Counterpoint

"Regardless of the precise release dates, the market for large-screen smartphones just got a bit more crowded and the newcomer is the player that Samsung should fear most," Richardson said.
And as we've seen with Apple over and over again, it's not about being first to market. It's about who lasts.
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