Chinese brands including Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Huawei have witnessed tremendous growth in the smartphone industry and now constitutes for 48 per cent market share globally with India, South Asia and Africa as key markets.
The overall global smartphone shipments grew three per cent year-over-year (YoY) reaching 365 million units in the second quarter of 2017, market research firm Counterpoint research said.
Xiaomi with 60 per cent, Vivo having 45 per cent, Oppo with 33 per cent and Huawei with 20 per cent market share were the fastest growing brands. These brands also witnessed an increase in the overseas smartphones shipments year-on-year.
Chinese brands have been successful in not only cementing their positions in their home country but also managing to expand beyond mainland China at the same time. They have backed their channel strategies with aggressive marketing spend in both above-the-line and below-the-line campaigns.
According to Counterpoint, these brands will continue to expand their reach beyond China during the second half of this year.
While Samsung led the smartphone market by volume with a market share of 22 per cent, its shipments recorded only a marginal growth of four per cent annually during the quarter. Apple's global smartphone market share declined due to seasonality.
Apple has also announced its third quarter results, saying iPhone sales were up 1.6 per cent to 41.03 million as compared to the 40.4 million iPhones sold a year earlier.
Apple's decline in China continues as Oppo, Vivo and Huawei posted record shipments in the second quarter in their home country.
