The Chinese smartphone market is truly a different animal from almost the rest of the world as their local OEMs dominate both sales and shipments. According to figures by Canalys, Xiaomi has regained the top ranking, taking over from Apple which was first the previous quarter. In fact, one of three phones shipped in China were either from Huwaei or from Xiaomi, which is now in second place. Apple falls to 3rd, while Samsung and Vivo round up the top five.
Xiaomi has gotten 15.9% of the market share in China, considered one of the biggest in the world (of course since they have the largest population). They also recently launched in Brazil, another hugely growing market, and they are now valued at more than $40 billion. Meanwhile, Huawei is pretty close at 15.7%, due to their 48% sequential growth. They are also the fastest growing vendor among the top 10 vendors in the list from Canalys, an independent analyst company.
Jingweng Cang, an analyst at Canalys says that the smartphone market in China has remained stagnant quarter-on-quarter, a sign that it is continually maturing. The figures show that Huawei has recorded the highest smartphone shipment in its history, while Apple and Samsung are also increasing their sales activities in the region in order to get back the market share they are continuing to lose to their Chinese rivals.
While the figures are of course subject to interpretation of Canalys, figures from other research agencies also validate their findings. Counterpoint Research also places Xiaomi at first, Huawei second, Apple third, Vivo 4th, and Samsung, now at a “lowly” fifth.
SOURCE: Canalys
