Xiaomi Corp (小米) led China’s smartphone shipments in the third quarter as local brands including Vivo ate into the shares held by global market leaders Samsung Electronics Co and Apple Inc, researcher Canalys said.
Xiaomi more than tripled its share of the world’s largest smartphone market to 16 percent in the three months to the end of September from 5 percent a year earlier, Canalys said in an e-mail yesterday. Samsung fell to second place from first as its market share dropped to 14 percent from 21 percent, the researcher said.
Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) maintained its 13 percent share of the Chinese market, yet still slipped to third place from second a year earlier. The country’s smartphone market is coming to the end of a period of “hypergrowth” that saw shipments double in the past two years, Lenovo chief executive officer Yang Yuanqing (楊元慶) said in an interview on Thursday.
“China market competition is very fierce,” Yang said by telephone. “It’s the most fiercely competitive smartphone market in the world.”
Fourth place was a tie as two more Chinese vendors, Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Coolpad Group Ltd (酷派), each captured 9 percent, Canalys said.
In sixth place was Vivo brand BBK Communication Technology Co (步步高通信科技), which tripled its share to 6 percent from 2 percent a year earlier, when it was ranked 11th, according to the researcher.
Apple fell to seventh place from fifth as its market share dropped to 5 percent, compared with 6 percent a year earlier, Canalys said. While new iPhones made their global debut on Sept. 19, they did not officially go on sale in China until Oct. 17, after the quarter ended.
Xiaomi’s surging sales at home lifted it to third place globally in the third quarter, trailing only Samsung and Apple, researcher International Data Corp reported on Oct. 29.
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