China is one of the fastest growing smartphone markets and several homegrown brands, such as Oppo and Coolpad, are seeking to challenge Apple and Samsung’s duopoly. As Lorraine Luk and Juro Osawa report:
Virtually unheard of outside China, several homegrown brands are gaining ground and seeking to challenge the technology giants’ duopoly. Working in their favor: advanced hardware at lower prices, strong relationship with Chinese carriers, as well as creative ways to build a fan base through social media and online forums.
Hundreds of millions of Chinese mobile users still haven’t replaced their basic phones, making the country a critical battleground for global smartphone brands at a time when growth is slowing in the U.S. and other mature markets.
China’s mobile market is so big that some local handset vendors, despite focusing mainly on the domestic market, already sell more smartphones overall than global competitors. In the third quarter of last year, Coolpad, the smartphone brand of China’s Yulong Computer Telecommunication Scientific (Shenzhen) Co., was the sixth-biggest smartphone vendor by units sold world-wide.
via China’s Homegrown Answers to Apple and Samsung – China Real Time Report – WSJ.
Last year, The New York Times told us that these workers are “cheap no more,” and just this February, the Heritage Foundation, touting the virtues of global free trade, claimed that Chinese factory wages have risen 20 percent per year since 2005. 
But unlike the bulk of China’s electronics manufacturers, which set up cramped dormitories and massive dining facilities to manage legions of workers who come to do basic assembly, SMIC’s campus is actually pleasant.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 