A point of sale for Oppo 5G smartphones in Changzhou, Jiangsu province. CHINA DAILY
World Cup, other football events attracting Chinese cell phone sponsors
Chinese smartphone companies are using the fervor for football to better resonate with global consumers while stepping up their push to explore overseas markets to revitalize the smartphone sector, which has slumped in sales amid the COVID-19 pandemic is.
The moves are part of Chinese smartphone makers’ broader plans to build brand awareness overseas through sponsorship of global sporting events, and more effort is needed to convert such big market spends into tangible sales growth figures, experts said.
Ni Xudong, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Vivo, the official smartphone sponsor of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, said: “Football has the power to bring people together. Innovation can help football fans build a community and share exciting World Cup experiences with everyone around the world, whether they’re watching the games at a stadium or enjoying the experience from afar.”
Vivo signed a six-year sponsorship deal with FIFA in 2017 and the Qatar event is the second World Cup that Vivo has sponsored, having previously sponsored the FIFA Confederations Cup 2017, FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 and the FIFA Arab Cup Qatar 2021 case was .
Vivo is not alone. Chinese competitor Oppo is also showing increasing enthusiasm for sponsoring football competitions. The company has entered into a two-year partnership with UEFA or the Union of European Football Associations for various competitions such as the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Super Cup in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons.
Huawei and Honor, two other Chinese smartphone vendors, have also partnered with soccer stars for marketing or once sponsored soccer teams.
Song Xiangqing, vice president of the Beijing-based Commerce Economy Association of China, said that although it costs a lot to sponsor brands and sell products at the event, it is the most direct way for Chinese companies to engage with events like the World Cup world market.
Vivo said it has successively entered 10 European country markets since sponsoring the World Cup in 2018. With the help of sponsorship of the UEFA competition in 2020, its share of the European market has more than doubled over the past year.
Those efforts have played a crucial role in its globalization process, Vivo said, adding that it has provided products and services to more than 400 million users in more than 60 countries and regions around the world.
The growing emphasis on establishing an overseas presence comes as the domestic smartphone market has been in decline for the past 18 months, according to research firm Counterpoint. Although the sales volume of China’s smartphone market increased 5 percent qoq in the third quarter, it still fell about 12 percent year-on-year.
Guo Tianxiang, a senior analyst at market research firm IDC China, said amid the global economic downturn, the overseas smartphone market is also at a low point. But it will have more growth potential and will recover faster than the domestic market. This applies in particular to emerging countries and regions such as Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa.
Sporting event sponsorship is an efficient way to crack a market, but it also takes effort in product quality and development to truly appeal to consumers in a given country, experts added.
