Samsung Who? Xiaomi Ousts World’s number One to Take the Gold in China

It’s borderline unthinkable, but it’s a fact nonetheless.

Samsung is the world’s undisputed number-one when it comes to Smartphone sales – there’s barely a brand on the planet that comes close in sheer sales-volume stakes. Apple’s iPhone may the single best-selling device of its type, but the number of Samsung Smartphone sales on the whole pretty much wipe the floor with every other big name in the book.

That is of course, unless you happen to live in China.

Samsung has officially been knocked off its perch in China – the fastest growing Smartphone market in the world and largely considered to be the most important of all. Had they lost the crown to the likes of Apple or Sony, it’s unlikely that too many eyelids would have been batted. That fact that it’s now Xiaomi in gold medal position has taken a fair few pundits off-guard.

If you haven’t even heard of Xiaomi thus far, don’t feel too bad about it. Xiaomi has only been on the market for four years and has barely scratched the surface outside its native China, which is why those in other major markets like the US and Europe probably won’t have ever seen one of their devices before. In China though, Xiaomi managed to scoop up a 14% share of all Smartphones sold in the Chinese market for the second quarter of this year. Not only did this mean a whopping 15 million device sales, but also improvement of 240% compared to the same quarter last year and more than enough to overtake Samsung.

Suffice to say, analysts and observers alike have been unanimously blown away by the achievements of Xiaomi to date.

“This is a phenomenal achievement for Xiaomi,” said Jingwen Wang, an analyst with Canalys.

“Xiaomi does now need to deliver LTE products in China to address growing demand for 4G services if it is to retain its momentum.”

It’s of course worth noting that the race for Smartphone supremacy is much more closely-run in China than in most western markets. Xiaomi may have taken the lead with its 14% share for Q2, but is closely followed by Huawei, Yulong, Lenovo and Samsung – all of which have at least 10% of the market or more.