The most popular smartphone in China

by cclnkadm on 25th September 2014

CCL025 - webDo you know which smartphone is the most popular in China? Surprisingly, it’s not the iPhone, LG, Huawei or HTC and Windows Phone hardly gets a look in. Even the ‘Apple of China’, Xiaomi, isn’t leading the way.

By John Browett

The most popular manufacturer of smartphones in China is Samsung. One of the principal reasons is that Samsung makes phones with screens large enough to work well with the Chinese language character set when presented on web sites.

As part of our work at CC-Link, I often deliver presentations to groups of engineering companies that want to take advantage of the most popular network in Asia.

Have you ever seen a Chinese web site?

Take HAO123.com for instance, a hugely successful information portal. It’s crammed with text – more than you would find on an equivalent web site targeting a European country. You could say the same of Sina.com, Sohu or virtually any other popular site.

The reason is fairly straightforward. If you want to type a phrase into a text box on a portal like this, you would need to either use the Chinese drop down character set menu or spell the Chinese word phonetically using Latin characters. As a result, it’s much easier to simply click on one of the blocks of text and follow the hyperlink directly to where you want to go.

Engineering impact
As Smartphones become more used in engineering this begins to have an impact. If you want to reach China using your new SCADA or DCS (Distributed Control System) monitoring app for instance, it will need to have an Android version available suitable for a Samsung phone.

You should also bear in mind that that the GUI (Graphical User Interface) for Samsung is called TouchWiz and is a re-skinned version of Android. You may need slight adaptation to cater for this. Most Asian manufacturers have a similar approach to the Android OS and their own re-skinned versions of the software.

Gateway to Asia
So, what’s the best way to reach into Asia with your message? The most obvious answer is a considered and well managed expansion plan incorporating The CLPA’s Gateway to Asia programme. Just as Samsung dominates Asia’s mobile phone market, so CC-Link leads the industrial networking arena.

Universal language
One medium that is both ideal for Smartphones and functional irrespective of character set is video. As a result, we are using it extensively to show what our partners are saying.

The CLPA on YouTube
At CLPA Europe, our role is to help European companies increase their Asian business using our Gateway to Asia programme. We host our own videos on YouTube to communicate the advantages of our technology to viewers across Europe..

There is some very useful information on our channel for OEMs deciding which network technology to design into a product to reach into Asia. The videos include:

• Knut Dettmer, principal engineer at Renesas Electronics Europe, talking about the businesses’ range of chips and system solutions. These include processors such as their R-IN32 solution, which includes support for CC-Link IE and CC-Link. Watch the video here.

• Jürgen Gutekunst, Balluff’s VP of business networking and business systems discussing the company’s rugged IP67 rated CC-Link IO blocks. Watch the video here.

• Stefan Körte, the sales and marketing director of Hilscher, describing their “netX” solution for implementing a wide range of networks, including CC-Link. Watch the video here.

• Jörgen Palmhager, the chief operating officer for HMS Industrial Networks, explaining how device manufacturers can overcome connectivity challenges in Asia by using CC-Link. Watch the video here.

The videos are all great examples of the benefits OEMs receive by integrating CC-Link into their products as well as being illustrations of technologies that make it easier to do so.

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