Beijing-based electronics company Xiaomi has toppled Samsung and Apple in China and to become the country's largest smartphone brand, according to IDC's (International Data Corporation) Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.
For years Samsung has been China's number one smartphone brand, but it was ultimately overcome by Xiaomi in 2014, which gained a 12.5 percent market share versus Samsung's 12.1 percent, IDC's report released Tuesday indicates. This represents a marked improvement over 2013's figures which had the Chinese homegrown brand taking a modest 5.3 percent of the market, while its South Korean rival boasted almost 18.7 percent market share in China.
Xiaomi's 186.5 percent year-on-year growth has taken everyone by surprise, especially Samsung which saw a 22.4 percent drop in the same period. Lenovo, which pledged to beat Samsung last year slid to third place in 2014, according to IDC.
Meanwhile, Apple Inc. kicked off iPhone 6 sales in China in the fourth quarter of 2014, but has also been out played by the Chinese homegrown brand.…
Explaining the success of Xiaomi, IDC's experts point to the company's strategy to sell low-cost Android smartphones with "decent features."
Sputnik
Xiaomi Smartphones Going Global After Beating Out Samsung, Apple in China
Ekaterina Blinova
4 comments:
I upgraded from Iphone to Xiaomi in Jan. China has created a couple of tech hubs, larger than the original silicon valley with all the features of the real one. The engineering universities, the government research facilities, the space agencies, and the talent they bring together. They also brought software and hardware development from existing large domestic & foreign tech companies along with hundreds of billions of dollars of seed money to pay for early innovation. Over the next few months they are having hundreds of multi-billion dollar IPOs to allow many of the first generation companies access to larger amounts of capital to pay for global expansion. It would be nice if they can help reproduce and ultimately reduce the price we have to pay for labor in California and bring California wages down to be more in line with the rest of the country.
When I see the gouging and ridiculous margins commanded by companies like Apple, Google, Cisco and Microsoft the field is ripe for competition especially as most of the technologies are quite mature and there hasn't been too much innovation in at least a decade.
I think China can unwind some of the preferential regulatory monopolies that tech companies have crammed down our throats by creating the broad concept of "intellectual property." that grants them greater rights than real property, copyright or patent law alone ever intended. The race is on though because China needs to make inroads before TPP takes effect and forces even more countries into US conception of regulatory monopoly for ideas.
The three gorges corporation of China is building a new cellulosic ethanol plant with the help of the Chinese ex-im bank in Mississippi. (More encirclement!)
It's easy to sell cheap phones when you ignore other company's patents and intellectual property rights. Just look at the trouble Xiaomi is having in India. The notion that Xiaomi could threaten companies like Apple, Samsung, and LG in the developed world is fantasy.
Intellectual property is a scam. Couldn't care less about big tech companies getting over-run by reality and all the starup-IPO complex scam get crushed as long as the Chinese make good products.
It's hilarious that crony plutocracies in the West have to be broken down by competition from a communist government which is running a rampant anti-corruption campaign in the east murdering corrupt bankers etc.
Crazy world.
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