Xiaomi takes lead over Huawei in Chinese smartphone market

On a global scale, we recently informed you about the standings where Apple took the top spot, followed by Samsung, and Xiaomi. Though being different than each other, Xiaomi and Huawei are in a headlock to prove themselves in the Smartphone industry.

Overall, the Chinese market was stagnant quarter-on-quarter, the market researcher said.

“Samsung has stabilised volumes in the high-end, but its lower-tier mobile phones continue to face intense competition from rivals such as Huawei in Asia”, said Strategy Analytics executive director Neil Mawston.

“Huawei recorded the highest smart phone shipments in its history without compromising its product margin or profitability”. Apple and Samsung have both increased their sales activities in the China market, expanding rapidly in channel coverage through flagship stores and small to medium size phone retailers respectively. Xiaomi which has been a maker of top end smartfones at a cheaper prize is under huge pressure to maintain its top position in the quarters to come. The report attributeed Xiaomi’s performance, after a two quarter dip, to the startup clearing out some older inventory left in the market and the release of new LTE models. Counterpoint placed Xiaomi first (15.8 percent marketplace), ahead of Huawei (15.4 percent), Apple (12.2 percent) and Vivo (8.1 percent marketplace; 250 percent year-on-year growth), with Samsung in fifth. Its Michigan Note phablet and new $150 Redmi 2 the top two devices in quarter, according to Counterpoint. It has once again topped China’s smartphone market, beating both Apple and Huawei Technologies.

However, the world’s most valuable brand, Apple Inc. lost more than 5% market share as compared to the previous quarter. Counterpoint estimated that shipments slid by two percent year-on-year in Q2 2015, but did rise four percent quarter-on-quarter. According to the US manufacturer’s latest figures, sales in Greater China have more than doubled year-on-year to $13 billion. iPhone sales in the region grew by 87 per cent YOY.