Has domestic Android phones successfully surpassed Apple? This question is actually very complex

The answer is complex

【PhoneAuto】”Has domestic Android surpassed Apple?” On May 16th, this topic sparked a lot of discussion among netizens, receiving tens of millions of reads, and causing many people to once again turn their attention to the current smartphone industry, attempting to understand the differences between “domestic Android” and “Apple”.

The debut of the first generation iPhone by Apple was undoubtedly a very important event and turning point in the decades-long development of mobile phones. Steve Jobs’ presentation at the launch of the first Apple iPhone opened a new door for the entire mobile phone industry. Global mobile phone brands crossed this door and developed the now highly competitive smartphone industry and market. Therefore, from any perspective, Apple is currently the most noteworthy manufacturer in the smartphone industry, and also the strongest opponent of the domestic Android smartphone industry (brands) since its birth.

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In fact, the fact that the topic “Has domestic Android surpassed Apple?” can cause widespread discussion and controversy is already the result of the former’s rapid development over the past decade or so. It should be noted that even five or six years ago, there was almost no need for any debate on such topics because the gap between the two was so huge.

So, back to the topic itself, has domestic Android really surpassed Apple? The author believes that this issue is actually very complex, and the situation in each field is different, and everyone may have different opinions on this. For netizens who are not familiar with this, I believe that after reading this article, you can also find your own answer.

When evaluating the strength of a mobile phone manufacturer, the most intuitive parameter is undoubtedly their phone sales. In this regard, Apple’s phones are far behind domestic Android phone manufacturers due to their relatively high prices.

According to research data from relevant agencies, Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, Transsion, Honor, Motorola, realme, and Huawei are currently the ten largest smartphone manufacturers in the global market, accounting for 22%, 21%, 11%, 10%, 8%, 5%, 4%, 4%, 3%, and 2% of market share, respectively. We can see that the majority of them are Chinese phone manufacturers. Even if Motorola (acquired by Lenovo) and Huawei (with the HarmonyOS system) are excluded, native Chinese Android phone manufacturers already account for over 40% of the global market, which is about twice that of Apple.

However, thanks to the higher average selling price of Apple phones, the vast majority of profits in the entire mobile phone industry are currently being collected by Apple. One-fifth of Apple’s phone sales are concentrated in the high-end market, where there is still a very large gap between the two.

Turning back to the smartphones themselves, the biggest evidence for the belief that domestic Android phones have surpassed Apple undoubtedly lies in the rapid progress of domestic Android phone manufacturers in terms of hardware and technology. In this regard, as Mr. Yu Chengdong of Huawei said, domestic Android phones can be said to be “far ahead”.

Over the past year or so, in addition to various routine core processor upgrades, major configurations or technological breakthroughs that have been applied to smartphones by domestic Android phone manufacturers include the Sony IMX989 sensor with a one-inch bottom, Samsung’s HP1 200 million pixel sensor, 240W wired charging technology, variable aperture technology, Qinghai Lake battery technology, a 2600 nit brightness C7 screen, and Beidou satellite communication technology, among others. These technologies are not illusory, but real mass-produced products. Behind them are the strong investments made by domestic Android phone manufacturers in the fields of imaging, charging, and other areas for several years.

As a comparison, Apple, which once amazed the world with innovation on the first generation iPhone, now seems to be somewhat conservative in applying new technologies. In almost all hardware aspects except for the core processor, the iPhone 14 Pro Max not only has no advantages compared to domestic Android flagships, but falls behind. For example, in terms of charging technology and imaging hardware, the iPhone 14 Pro Max still only supports 25W fast charging and doesn’t even come with a periscope telephoto lens on the rear camera.

In fact, Apple is not without the capability to adopt many hardware features, but perhaps due to considerations such as cost and stability, Apple has been slow to address many hardware shortcomings. After all, the final sales of almost every iPhone model are calculated in tens of millions, and once a model has problems, it will affect a very large user base.

When we ask iPhone users why they purchased this phone, the answers from ordinary people are often varied, while tech enthusiasts who understand the matter usually point out the “operating system” as the key.

In actual use, Apple’s iOS system allows devices to seamlessly integrate with other Apple products, such as the iPad and Mac. While domestic Android phone manufacturers have made deep customizations to their systems, they are still relatively independent and cannot provide a complete cross-device experience. A complete ecosystem is enough to bind consumers and manufacturers completely. Currently, Android phone manufacturers face obstacles in this regard if they want to lure users away from Apple.

Actually, the development history of Android operating system is not inferior to that of iOS. In terms of camp strength, it may even be better than the latter, because on the Android side, there are not only Chinese smartphone manufacturers, but also giant companies such as Google and Samsung. However, the large number of device models and the difficulty of complete coordination among different manufacturers are factors that affect the catching up of Android system with iOS. Moreover, it is precisely because of the huge number of device models that it is difficult for Android smartphone manufacturers to update the system like Apple to be compatible with models from five or six years ago, because the workload is much larger.

Of course, iOS is not without problems. In fact, in recent years, users’ complaints about iOS bugs have increased day by day, and the stability of this system is not as high as many people think. Just a few days ago, Apple’s servers went down for 55 minutes, data provider services were interrupted, and iPhone users were affected in terms of weather, iCloud, and other services. At the same time, due to the relatively closed ecosystem, the freedom of iOS devices is far less than that of Android. In the eyes of some digital enthusiasts, this problem is enough to make them refuse to use iOS devices.

Actually, among the domestic smartphone manufacturers today, there is a very special company, which is Huawei. Since the release of HarmonyOS, Huawei can no longer be seen as an Android smartphone manufacturer. Objectively speaking, HarmonyOS still has a big gap compared to Android and iOS, after all, its release time is short and the development environment is not optimistic. Fortunately, from the current sales data of the mobile phone industry, Huawei phones are gradually coming out of the trough. Perhaps in the future, the question “Has domestic Android surpassed Apple?” will be asked without “Android” and “?”

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