Aututu Global Mobile Phone User Preferences in Q4 2019

The year 2020 has come. In the past 2019,the appearances of mobile phones change faster than we’ve ever imagined. Oncewe have thought that 18:9 is the super large view, but now the screens ofmobile phones are longer and longer. Besides, we can say that, mobile phone, asa mobile terminal product, is changing completely and rapidly, in both internalstructure and external appearances.

Statistics have shown how people’s needstowards mobile phones are changing. At the same time, it tells us where the keyimprovements happen.

Next, let’s look at the preferences of globalmobile phone users in Q4 of 2019.

It should be noted that this preferenceslist is prepared based on the phone configuration of the users of Antutu andthus it does not represent the preferences of the overall Android market.

Screen Size: The World of Big Screen

Fromthe distribution graph, screens of 6.0, 6.3- and 6.4-inches account for about48.2% among all mobile phones. It’s almost half, which is a large number.However, if you take a closer look, segments accounting for less proportions arestill mobile phones of over 6 inches.

Screensizes of 6.2, 6.5, 6.7, and even 6.8 inches can be seen. If we add allmobile phones of over 6 inches together, the whole proportion reaches over 83%.There have been few mobile phones with screen sizes of less than 6 inches.

Thereason for this phenomenon, on the one hand, is because of market supply chain.The production of 6-inch screen may have been stopped. Second, it is “forced”by mobile phone manufacturers that they don’t release mobile phones of small screen. As a natural consequence, the proportion isbecoming smaller. This is also the natural development trend of mobile phones.

Screen Resolution: 1080P Is Still theMainstream

There have been no standards for the screensize of mobile phones, but as for screen resolution, it has been stayed at1080P mostly. From the corresponding distribution graph, 1080x2340 accounts for38.1%, which is the largest proportion.

There are also some mobile phones with theresolution of 720P, but they account for less than 10% in total. In the near future,mobile phones of 720P will completely disappear.

Onceit is thought that 2k resolution will become the mainstream configuration formobile phones soon. However, the problems of high battery consumption and costsof 2K resolution mobile phones haven’t been well addressed. Also, in terms ofvisual experience, it does not have too much difference from 1080P. Therefore,1080P will remain the mainstream for quite a long time in the near future.

CPUBrand: Qualcomm Is the Lead

Interms of CPU, the major four brands we are familiar with include QualcommSnapdragon, Samsung Exynos, HiSilicon Kirin and MediaTek. Among them, Qualcommaccounts for 59.3%, which is leading with the greatest market share. Theproportion of Qualcomm is larger than the total sum of the rest three.

However, the SoC of Qualcomm and MediaTekcan be sold to other companies. For example, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo and othermanufacturers have all been using their products, while only Huawei would useHiSilicon Kirin CPU. Therefore, Qualcomm has the advantages by statisticssolely, but if we exclude the external sale, things might be different forQualcomm and Kirin.

Moreover,apart from selling to other companies, Qualcomm has the advantages of multiplepositioning, for example, flagship, medium and low level. Currently, mid-range andlow-end mobile phones (Huawei/Honor excluded) all use Qualcomm SoC.

Anotherthing worth mentioning is that MediaTek has shown its effort recently andlaunched Dimensity 1000, 1000L, 800 and other SoCs, which means that they areentering the competition with Qualcomm in mid-range and low-end market.

CPUCores: Octa-Core Is Common

In today’s mobile phone market, even thenewly released low-end mobile phones are equipped with octa-core SoC, while thequad-cores have become water under the bridge.

From the statistics of Antutu, currently,the octa-core chips account for 94.3% of the market share, obviously a largeproportion. With increasing number of cameras and the high refresh rate screenon mobile phones, octa-core chip has become a necessity.

4.9% among all mobile phones are equippedwith quad-core chips. This cannot be found in the mobile phones newly releasedin 2019. A good guess is that they’re the low-end ones released one year ago.And most users may use them as spares.

RAM: 4G/6G Both Popular

The configurations of mobile phone arebecoming more and more complicated. Only 3.7% of mobile phones still have theRAM of 2G. This figure is even poorer than that of 12G RAM, which is the top-levelconfiguration for a few mobile phones now. 12G RAM accounts for 3.3% now.

The total of 4G/6G/8G RAM has taken up forover 80%. Among them, 6G and 4G are both popular. 6G RAM has become the basicfor flagship mobile phones. In the near future, the proportion of 4G RAM willbecome smaller and smaller, while that of 8G RAM will become larger.

For the rest 2G and 3G RAM, they willgradually disappear in newly-released mobilephones.

ROM: 64G Can Still Make It

The basic level of storage for newly-releasediPhone is still 64G. If iPhone does not upgrade its basic storage to 128G,other brands will naturally take 64G as the basic storage. Therefore, theproportion of 64G ROM is 38.4%, which accounts for the largest proportion.

However, the figure of 128G is catching up,which we cannotneglect. It accounts for 35.1%. Based on the storage combinations and photo sizesof new mobile phones, and considering the coming 8K video filming, it ispossible that in 2020, iPhone would cancel 64G version, an optionwhich might be useless after all. It’s really not enough in storage.

One notable thing is that 32G still takesup 15.1% and it existed in the new mobile phones released in 2019. It can beestimated that they are old versions which do not have too much concerns aboutthe storage.

Android Version: Same Old Small Segments

Asa matter of fact, in recent years, the updates of Android versions are not thatseparate and complex anymore. However, different brands and manufacturers arestill different.

Datashow that the mobile phones with Android 9 system account for 73.4%, which isimpressive. Android 10 takes up 11.9%, which is looking good. But consideringAndroid 10 has been launched for nearly half a year, the situation is notoptimistic.

Besides,the comprehensive proportion of Android 7 and 8 has reached about 13.1%, fromwhich we can see that it will be a long time before the issue of fragmentation of Androidmarket is addressed.

Theabove is the interpretation on the preferences of Antutu's users in Q4 of 2019.From the figures, we can see that Android phones still exist in a form of smallsegments. It can be attributed to its open source. The figures may look alittle bit in chaos, but this seems to have nothing to do with user experience.After all, Android is nothing like what it has been first launched. For whatever the version, storage, and screen, proper optimizationhas been made and it is really easy to use.

Itneeds to be noted again that this only represents the preferences of users ofAntutu and it doesn't imply the distribution of the whole Android market.