We all know that Chinese phone manufacturers have been doing well over the past year or so, but if you need concrete evidence, here’s the latest report from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. According to the report, while the total smartphone shipment year-on-year has grown by about 25%, the market share for Samsung and Apple have both declined. The reason? Chinese phone manufacturers of course.
Although the total shipment for Apple may have grown by 12.4%, it only held for 11.9% of the 2Q14 market share as opposed to 13% for the same period last year. IDC did note that the second quarter is always Apple’s seasonal low of the year and everyone’s probably waiting for the next generation iPhone. The market share for Samsung on the other hand took a big fall, dropping by 3.9% year-on-year. It may remain at the number one spot, but the 2Q14 market share is only 25.2% compared to a whopping 32.3% last year.
So, who are the big winners in the report? Chinese phone manufacturers, namely Huawei and Lenovo. With affordable devices like the Huawei Honor 3C and the flagship Huawei Ascend P7, the Chinese company’s global smartphone shipment grew by an astonishing 95.1% year-on-year. Its market share for 2Q13 was only 4.3% but grew to 6.5% for 2Q14, placing them in the #3 position. As for Lenovo, despite having strong competitors from their own country – Xiaomi and Huawei just to name a few – Lenovo manage to set a record quarter for 2Q14, growing by 38.7% year on year.
Finally, while LG Mobile may not have much of a presence here in Malaysia, their global market share has grown by 38.7% in 2Q14, shipping 14.5 million units compared to 12.1 million units of their smartphones in 2Q13. According to IDC, their success is largely driven by its L series (the LG L70), and the success of the G3 also helped the company; IDC expects greater volume to show up in the third quarter.
The next two quarterly reports from IDC would definitely be very interesting. With Chinese phone manufacturers rising up so quickly, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a few more Chinese names encroaching on the top of the list.
