Xiaomi Overtakes Apple As World's Second Largest Smartphone OEM
This quarter, smartphone shipments have been up as we hope to enter the downhill slide of the pandemic. At the head of the pack was Samsung with 19% of shipped smartphones, but sneaking up behind is Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi with a 17% share, knocking Apple down to third place with a 14% share.
Xiaomi's impressive overtake in the mobile device market is due in part to a preliminary estimate of the company's annual growth rate at 83%. This is quite impressive when compared to Apple's measly 1% growth and Samsung's 15%. Canalys Research Manager Ben Stanton explained that "Xiaomi is growing its overseas business rapidly," as "its shipments increased more than 300% in Latin America, 150% Africa and 50% in Western Europe."
Furthermore, "all vendors are fighting hard to secure component supply amid global shortages," so this will not be an easy battle. Thankfully, the previous ban on Xioami from the Trump administration has been lifted, so we could see more growth in the US as well. This could certainly lead Xioami to overtake Samsung and become the world's largest smartphone vendor, but we will have to see what happens shortly.
