I would totally understand why people might want to purchase shanzhai products, especially in the phone market. I believe there is an increasing demand in the shanzhai phone market, particularly in China.
Shanzhai cell phones look exactly like the original branded products. Usually when a new cell phone is released, the copy or shanzhai version of it hits the market soon after. The cost for shanzhai phones is relative lower than the actual products for manufacturers, thus the phones are selling at a lower price.
There are some key reasons why people want a shanzhai phone. First and foremost, they are inexpensive and yet look exactly the same as the original model. Also, for many of the times, shanzhai phones have more functions than the “brand phone” because the software installed is usually a combination of several other systems. Therefore, people who want to have a fancy phone but do not want to spend a lot of money on it would like buying a shanzhai phone instead. Yet there are cases where people believe shanzhai phone has better systems and serves them better at their needs.
However, shanzhai phones have fatal disadvantages for sure, as they usually do not have as good qualities, thus lasting a shorter period of time compare to other phones. There can be no warranty or post-sale service associated with shanzhai phones.
There are over 550 million cell phone users in China. On average Chinese youth upgrade to a new mobile phone every 9-12 months in comparison to every 18-24 months in other countries (according to China Market Research Group (CMR) findings). It seems that there are good reasons for why consumers would choose to buy shanzhai phones and given how quickly a new phone is released, there is no surprise why shanzhai phone market is so popular. However, I still need to do more research to find out whether this whole issue is legal or not. If it is legal, I would not reject the shanzhai market is favorable for consumers.
Word Cited:
http://thechinaobserver.com/2009/01/05/no-matter-whether-you-call-it-%E5%B1%B1%E5%AF%A8%E6%9C%BA-shanzhai-or-bandit-phone-this-is-a-chinese-consumer-trend-worth-keeping-an-eye-on/