Nicole Peng

Even on Android and WeChat, a lot more content requires users to pay membership or subscription fees.

Chinese consumers would ask, 'Why would I want to trade in my phone? Are you saying I don't have enough money to buy it?'.

Huawei is in a strong position to consolidate its dominance further amid 5G network rollout, given its tight operator relationships in 5G network deployment, and control over key components such as local network compatible 5G chipsets, this puts significant pressure on Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi, which find it very hard to make any breakthrough.

Huawei opened a huge gap between itself and other vendors, its dominant position gives Huawei a lot of power to negotiate with the supply chain and to increase its wallet share within channel partners.