The Chinese smartphone maker Vivo has also started selling three devices in the Netherlands. With this, Vivo follows other, still relatively unknown Chinese brands, such as TCL, RealMe and Oppo, which are still relatively unknown in the Netherlands despite their enormous Asian sales figures.
In recent years, many Chinese tech brands in Europe have started selling smartphones. Despite the fact that Huawei achieved great sales successes and Xiaomi is making considerable progress in terms of market share, the Samsung-Apple duopoly is by no means broken. That does not prevent new Chinese players from entering the Dutch market as well.
Here is Vivo
We can do that now too Vivo adding up, that enters the Dutch market with three smartphones: two budget devices (the Vivo Y76 5G and Vivo Y33S) and the top device, the Vivo X80 Pro. The smartphones do not seem very striking, because the smartphones seem difficult to distinguish from the countless other devices from Chinese brands. Because Vivo also tries to impress especially in the specification area and to offer the budget smartphones for dump prices.
You may have seen the name Vivo before. For example, they were one of the main sponsors of the previous World Cup and they have no moral objections to link the brand name to the upcoming World Cup in Qatar.
Although Vivo was one of the first brands to introduce a pop-up selfie camera a few years ago, unique features and innovations are not currently available. It would be a no-brainer to bet on longer update support for Android, just like Samsung. But when asked, Vivo turned out to have no plans for that.
What is there to gain for Vivo?
BBK Electronics
To answer that question, we have to zoom out a bit. Vivo is one of the many brands of BBK Electronics. This Chinese mothership is, despite the brand name not known here, the second largest smartphone maker in the world. BBK seems eager to gain a foothold in the Netherlands. By flooding the market with smartphones that are difficult to distinguish from each other, from brands that do not appear to be connected to each other.
OnePlus was the first BBK Electronics brand to appear in the Netherlands. Followed by Oppo, Realme and now Vivo. If we look at the market share figures of Statcounter, then the tactic does not appear to be bearing fruit. Samsung and Apple jointly control almost 80% of the market. Despite the new strategy of a multitude of smartphones, OnePlus has a market share of 1.75%. Oppo is doing slightly better, especially thanks to budget devices: 2.99%. Realme sells too few smartphones to be included in the chart at all.
Putting that in perspective, that market share is about the same size as Huawei, which has virtually given up on smartphone sales since the US trade ban. The biggest Chinese competitor is Xiaomi. This brand is also flooding the Dutch market with brands and devices, such as Poco and RedMi. Like BBK brands, Xiaomi seems to pay little attention to the software and the update policy. Xiaomi sells smartphones below the production price, and earns more with personalized advertising in apps and the operating system. This makes the smartphones seem too good to be true in specification lists.
Vivo’s smartphones
Unfortunately, the three Vivo smartphones seem to stand out little compared to the Oppo, OnePlus and Realme smartphones. The press release of the three smartphones particularly emphasizes the camera functionalities, which actually only seem to be the domain of Samsung, Google and Apple. The Vivo X80 Pro even has four cameras and a Zeiss logo. Our upcoming reviews will show whether the cameras can actually compete with Apple, Samsung and Google.
The Vivo X80 Pro will be available from July 25 from 1099 euros. The Vivo Y76 and Vivo Y33 are available for 219 and 299 euros respectively.
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