THE MARKETS

Shopping Overseas

Chinese consumers spent a record high of $7.2 billion outside the country during the Spring Festival holiday (January 22-28), according to a recent survey by the World Luxury Association.

Europe remained the top destination for luxury shoppers during the seven-day holiday with a 46-percent market share. Chinese tourists contributed 62 percent of luxury sales in Europe during the holiday.

Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan accounted for 35 percent while north America took the remaining 19 percent, with Chinese travelers contributing one third to its sales.

The association said the Chinese consumers were the biggest luxury buying force during the holiday, with watches, leather goods, fashion clothes and cosmetics topping their shopping lists.

Playing Catch-up

With six of them entering the list of top 10 handset brands in China, domestic cellphone makers had taken a combined market share of 37.5 percent by the end of last year, close to the four big overseas brands' share of 41.5 percent, according to a recent report by Analysys International, a Beijing-based research firm.

The combined market share of the domestic brands—Lenovo, Huawei and ZTE—was only 20 percent at the end of 2010, compared with over 55 percent of the big four overseas brands—Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and LG.

"The change is in part due to weakening dominance of Nokia, and the rapidly growing Android also gave companies a new equal and open platform to develop their products," said the report.

"In addition, Chinese firms have closely tied up with telecom operators to lure buyers with favorable user packages," said Wang Yin, a senior analyst with the Analysys International.