Hong Kong’s immediate neighbor, mainland China, had a smartphone market that was dominated by domestic smartphone manufacturers like Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo, with a total market share for all three of around 70 percent. However, the smartphone market in Hong Kong is more internationally oriented, with Apple and Samsung being the market leaders with a combined market share of over 65 percent at the end of 2019. In particular, the Apple iPhone has been the absolute favorite device among Hong Kong residents; it managed to keep the leading position in the market in the last few years with over 40 percent of market share.
In terms of technology, most of the mobile internet connections in Hong Kong were already utilizing 4G services as of 2018, with around 87 percent of mobile internet connections using at least 3G technology. This figure translated to over 18.5 million mobile subscribers in total. The city is also well prepared for an upgrade to 5G. In 2019, the government of Hong Kong has announced that a 5G service will be launched in 2020.
The share of households in Hong Kong which were connected to the internet at home via a smartphone exceeded 99 percent as of September 2018, indicating an extremely heavy reliance on smartphones for internet access. Moreover, smartphone penetration rate reached almost 99 percent among consumers aged between 15 to 54 years old, and the penetration rate was higher among females at a younger age than their male counterparts and the lowest among older population in the society.
