"MADE IN CHINA" BECOMES COOL
The rapid development of China's high-speed train industry offers only a glimpse into the rapid transformation and upgrading of "Made in China" products in recent years.
On the back of technological prowess and good value, an increasing number of Chinese companies, including Huawei, Lenovo, Gree, Xiaomi and drone maker DJI-Innovation, have gained footholds in the international market, paving the way for a wave of global Chinese brands.
Take the cell phone industry for example. Chinese smartphone brands, such as Huawei, Oppo and Vivo, have seen dramatic increase in shipments over the past years and ate into the market share of their foreign rivals such as Apple and Samsung.
Advancing rapidly into new markets worldwide, Huawei is now the world's third largest smartphone manufacturer, with a close to 10 percent market share in the first quarter this year. Its products are particularly welcomed in Europe, where the company is growing at an unprecedented pace with better products and a new brand image.
In India, Chinese brands have together accounted for 51 percent share in smartphone segment as of late 2016.
In August 2016, Chinese smartphone vendor ZTE took 9.4 percent of the Russian smartphone market in terms of quantity shares, coming in the second place and exceeding the share of Apple's iPhone for the first time.
Transsion, a Shenzhen-based company whose products are sold under the Tecno, itel and Infinix brand names, has grabbed 40 percent of the African market.
By developing handsets with dual SIM-cared slots and optimizing its cameras to better highlight the feature of people with dark skin tones, the smartphone manufacturer, which few Chinese have heard of, has become the top player in Africa's fast growing smartphone market.
The success of Chinese brands can be attributed to their better user experience, faster adoption of 4G technology and greater emphasis on cameras, according to an article on India's Livemint website.
"Chinese smartphones are beautiful, bold and dirt cheap, according to an article on CNN's website. "They typically cost just a couple hundred bucks without a contract, and they offer some unique features American phones don't have."
The title of the article sums it up: "Your next smartphone could be from China."
