Many brands that once hogged headlines on GizChina are no more. iOcean, THL (although they keep ‘coming back’ every year), Neo, Amoi, FAEA… the list goes on and on. These brands are nowhere to be seen, and a big reason for their disappearance have been brands like Xiaomi, and later, Meizu.
There’s another set of Chinese phone makers though, that seems less affected by the onslaught of Xiaomi and the likes. These were brands that dealt only in clones. GooPhone and Dakele are some of the biggest names in the iPhone cloning (also referred to as ‘ChiPhone’) industry… at least one of them is, because Dakele is no more.
Gizchina News of the week
This bit of news comes from Dakele CEO, Ding Xiuhong who took to Weibo to share the development about his company shutting shop.
We’d like to ask here: is it the end of an era? Is the Chinese market finally in line with its developed counterparts in the West? Now that China has its own Apple (read: Xiaomi), and its dwellers enough purchasing power to get the real thing, the future looks bleak for clone makers.
The main reason for this is that now a lot more Chinese can afford a real iPhone and are also willing to pay a premium for a good phone. I believe, that same could happen to xiaomi, as more and more people start thinking that if you want a good phone, you need to pay the price for it.
Truly very sad to see them go, I always liked clones and also had them since the iPhone 5. I hope at least goophone stays in the market
“Truly very sad to see them go, I always liked clones and also had them
since the iPhone 5. I hope at least goophone stays in the market”
Good God…
Most people here hate against clones but still buy shit brands like elephone, umi etc lol
so damn true, people will bash some clones that actually work and then buy “original” phones that break down in a month.. the irony
elephone and umi have potential and are not really clone makers … think of them like lousy nerds who could easily be among the top 5 students in the class but are too lazy to do so
I think I found a potential phone for you: leagoo shark 1
Or even worse: Xiaomi
TRIGGERED: Why u saying this
I have nothing against clones they serve a purpose in the market just like anything else does and some of them are really good. The No.1 Mi4 was an excellent clone.
thl is still making the thl t7 is already in pre-order, its a nice budget offering too,
This is one of the best news you guys can bring in this site, clone makers should die.
MediaTek made this possible, with the new powerful MediaTek SoCs phone makers are now willing to risk going into the legit business while not having to suffer of poor performance.
Nice way to start the day.
Wow…so the biggest copycat of them all Apple should die….that’s a bold statement in an Industry where everybody copies everybody and sues everybody.
Wait iOcean is gone?
Looks like that…
With the rise of phones like Redmi Note and Meizu M, people can get a really good phone for $150 from one of the bigger names. There really is no room for a lot of these smaller companies to compete. Here are some names I no longer see these days:
iNew
iOcean
THL (their latest attempts are just sad)
Xiaocai
Kingzone
FAEA
KingSing (another clone maker)
Meitu
Newman
Voto
Pomp
Even two that were doing pretty well last year have been strangely MIA: Mlais and Siswoo. Anyone else remember any brands of yesteryear?
nah … and believe me , we’ll have more brand demises on the way !
either they step up the game .. or go home
Neken,star, more list
Newman & kingzone not dead
It’s sad, but wee can already add to this list Jiayu also…
I loved my TH W8s – at the time a 1080p 32GB phone with 2GB RAM for < $300 was insane.
It's a pity that lack of quick charge, lack of a single firmware upgrade and god damn mediatek lack of sources killed it.
I'd never buy another one no matter how enticing. It's just a pure waste of time. Buy devices that either have a huge Indian following like Xiaomi so people release ROM's on XDA, or stick with Qualcomm chicks and flagships from Samsung, LG and the like.
Problem is some of those clone maker companies only made clone that “looks like the original” but the quality of their hardwares way below standard (read : easily defunct).
So after some time, people that bought their product and experienced that after 2-6 months those products already faulty, they learned their lesson the hard way and now they choose to buy a more robust and durable smartphones/tablet from a more reputable companies.
But again i could be wrong LOL.