Xiaomi overtakes Samsung to become the biggest smartphone vendor in the world

Chinese smartphone maker, Xiaomi has overtaken Samsung as the leader of the world’s smartphone market. According to Counterpoint Research, Xiaomi took control of 17.1% of the global market, 1.4% more than Samsung’s 15.7% share during the month of July.

This impressive growth comes hot off Xiaomi’s climb to the second spot in the second quarter and marks the first time the smartphone maker has topped the charts.

New leaders

A breakdown shows that Xiaomi’s sales grew 26% month over month, reflecting the boom in Q2 that saw it sell more smartphones than Apple. Counterpoint Research Director, Tarun Pathak explained that Huawei’s decline has been helping Xiaomi grow as it fills the gap created.

“Ever since the decline of Huawei commenced, Xiaomi has been making consistent and aggressive efforts to fill the gap created by this decline. The OEM has been expanding in Huawei’s and HONOR’s legacy markets like China, Europe, Middle East, and Africa. In June, Xiaomi was further helped by China, Europe, and India’s recovery and Samsung’s decline due to supply constraints,” Pathak said.

Huawei’s market share has been plummeting globally as the effects of the multi-year US export ban continues to tear up its appeal.

Despite not doing business in the US, Xiaomi has been able to hit growth milestones by been aggressive in its home market of China, which remains the world’s biggest smartphone market, and other major markets like India.

With 58 smartphone models, the smartphone maker covers most segments of the market. Its products include affordable state-of-the-art foldable like the Mi Mix Fold and flagship phones like the Mi 11 Ultra.

Xiaomi has sold close to 800 million smartphones since its inception in 2011.

Could Samsung recover?

Samsung couldn’t match Xiaomi’s growth in the month of July but the gap between them is not really considerable. According to Counterpoint, the smartphone maker suffered from temporary problems associated with the resurgence of COVID-19 in Vietnam.

Production in most of the company’s major phone manufacturing facilities in the country was disrupted in June, which resulted in the brand’s devices facing shortages across channels.

Its Galaxy S21 has sold 13.5 million units during the first half of the year. However, it’s highly likely to miss its sales target as the previous model, S20, sold in the mid-20-millions, while older Galaxy S models sold around 30 million over the same period.

Despite the drops, the report says Samsung would soon recover and once that happens it’s highly likely the ranks reshuffle again.

Apple remains number 3

Apple remains third with a market share of 14.3% during the month. This is a significant drop from the market share it had at the beginning of the year where it had a market share of over 20%.

Despite the drop, the smartphone’s flagship iPhone product saw significant growth. According to the company, iPhones sales saw a 50% growth to bring its revenue to $81.43 billion for the quarter ended June.

The gap between the market leaders and Apple appears to be based more on the side slower growth than an actual decline in Apple smartphone sales.

In Summary

Going forward, if the situation in Vietnam does not improve, Samsung’s production will likely keep dropping as Xiaomi continues to gain its share of the market.

In the case of Apple, it may appear that a significant amount of customers are keeping smartphones for longer.

However, since it seems that Xiaomi isn’t facing the problems, it may be that availability of lower end 5G smartphones and innovative features have been deciding factors for end-users to upgrading their existing smartphones – and Xiaomi has products that fit that segment.