Counterpoint Whitepaper: TECNO plays a leading role in the premium evolution of the 5G Smartphone

Counterpoint Research, a global research firm specializing in products in the TMT (technology, media, and telecom) industry released its new industry whitepaper named “The Rise of TECNO”. The paper highlights how the smartphone market has been moving towards premium products in recent years, fuelled by demand and technological advancements in various components and consumers’ willingness to pay more for their devices, especially in emerging markets. Counterpoint believes that different eras have produced varying leading brands and when considering the current 5G era, TECNO has become a new force, driving new markets, innovation, and premium development.

• In the 5G era, consumer preference and market growth drivers are evolving toward the premium segment in the smartphone domain
• Every era has new brands emerging, and TECNO seize great opportunities in the premium smartphone segment in the 5G Era
• TECNO keeps steady growth globally and has consistently held a top-10 position in the global smartphone market since Q4 2020.
• TECNO upcoming flagship PHANTOM X2 plays a pivotal role in the company’s journey toward premium, featuring MediaTek’s Dimensity 9000 5G chipset to deliver an unparalleled experience for users.

According to the whitepaper, new brands emerged as new forces and during each generation of cellular technology development, the main reason for their success is foresight on the opportunity and the innovative product offering adapting to consumer demand. Counterpoint also highlights that the main features consumers seem to be focusing on are a phone’s camera, memory, display, battery and SoC capabilities. This is proven by the statistics of global smartphone feature share change which the data in recent years exhibited in the reports. Currently, to attract the broadest potential market share for profitability, OEMs are pushing flagship features into more portfolios and providing consumers with more upgraded features to achieve a better life and work experience. Among all the global smartphone OEMs, TECNO is a brand that has shown vision and capitalized on emerging markets’ growth opportunities. This can especially be said regarding the premium segment of emerging markets as the company has demonstrated tremendous ambition by seizing any opportunity to invest in the quest for continuous evolution.

Commenting on TECNO’s success from afar as a new driving force of premium evolution in new markets, Counterpoint referred to the ambition for global success as well as its glocalization strategy supported by a strong R&D ecosystem. “TECNO offers smartphones customized to meet needs specific to regional users aside from pricing competitiveness. This will greatly help the company explore the higher-value markets.” As per the statistics, TECNO achieved at least double-digit growth from 2020 to 2021 in these markets.

As Russell Flannery, Editor at Large of Forbes Magazine mentioned that “Global competition is complex, and resilient supply chains have been a core building block for China’s smartphone success. Yet looking deeper into this, the core of that is technological know-how.” The development of premium camera technology has always been valued by Chinese brands. The report analyst witnessed the increasing uptake of more great cameras with AI capabilities in mid-to-high-end smartphones from OEMs. TECNO is also monitoring the premium trend to ensure market and consumer relevance. The upcoming PHANTOM X2 plays a leading role, featuring MediaTek Dimensity 9000 5G chipset, together with the ultra-fast night scene algorithm and super night video algorithm, users’ experience on the dark-field image and video will be unbelievably improved.

Furthermore, the report believed that TECNO’s ambition towards a more premium brand doesn’t stop in the smartphone domain. The story is set to continue with the brand essence of “Stop At Nothing”. Hailing the launch of TECNO’s first laptop product “MEGABOOK” as an impressive milestone, TECNO is gradually building a new ecosystem, focusing on two key categories of “Personal and Home” which includes multi segments of products.

“Growth of higher spec devices highlights the consumer pivot towards premium – and brands like TECNO have evolved to meet that shift”, said Tarun Pathak.  He also points out that TECNO is becoming an essential force in the premium segment. More examples of innovative strategies and actions that push TECNO to gradually expand in premium smartphone markets and other segments are shared in the white paper, readers who may be interested in it can download it via https://www.counterpointresearch.com/white-paper-brand-study-the-rise-of-tecno/ where more detailed information can be found.