That didn’t take very long did it? The current darlings of smartphones Xiaomi, is now officially the fifth largest smartphone vendor in the world based on latest data from Strategy Analytics.
Xiaomi captured a 5% global market share in the last three months, up from 1.8% the same time last year. For a four year old company, that’s remarkable. Just for the sake of comparison though, Apple grabbed about 20% market share in four years since the birth of the iPhone in 2007.
The “Apple of China” as so its reluctantly called, has been highly successful in China, selling out its products including the popular Mi 2, Redmi and the latest Redmi Note and Mi 3 flagship almost as quick as they go up for sale.
The flash sale strategy has worked in epic manner, Xiaomi shipped 15.1 million smartphones in the quarter. Xiaomi reported it shipped 26.1 million phones in the first half of 2014. Not bad for a business model that is sans any physical stores, advertising and traditional distributor channels.
Samsung remains the smartphone leader with 25.2% share in Q2 2014, Apple with 11.9%, Huawei at 6.8% and Lenovo at 5.4%.
Smartphone shipments globally grew by 27% year-on-year, with a record number of shipments of 295 million units in Q2. In terms of mobile OS marketshare, Android comes up tops with 85% of all new smartphones shipped.
Xiaomi’s phenomenal rise is set to continue as its swift, agile hands reach out to more markets outside of China. It will not be a surprise for market leaders like Samsung and Apple to be rattled by this young upstart, as they will see competition fiercer in the months to come.
Source: Forbes
