A new report from South Korea indicates that Samsung will be shutting down its last smartphone manufacturing plant in China at the end of the month. The plant located in the Guangdong province of China first started producing phones on December 1992. It is presently the only functional Samsung production plant in China and around June this year, the company scaled down production at the plant with reports of workers getting laid off.
The steady rise to prominence of local phone manufacturers in China signalled the decline of Samsung phones in what was one of its strongholds. Samsung controlled more than 20% share of the market in the hay days but as Chinese brands continue to surge in growth, the Korean company continued to lose market share. The local OEMs like OPPO, Vivo, Xiaomi and others were able to gain ground against the global market leader by offering premium models at affordable prices. Samsung’s market share in China was below 1% as at the end of 2018.
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In recent times, Samsung has made efforts to reclaim its lost glory in the Chinese market and other markets like India where Chinese OEMs have grabbed a chunk of the market share for her hands. The company recently shifted its focus to the midrange segment with the Galaxy A series and other premium but affordable models. The Korean tech giant is also exploiting the use of ODM to manufacture its phones for the local market in a bid to cut the cost of production and thus bring down the retail price. The Galaxy A6s and A9s were the first devices to be manufactured by an ODM.
Samsung still continues production of smartphones in its plants in Thailand and Vietnam, though. However, it remains to be seen if there would be any chance of a return to China in the future. Time will tell.
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