Xiaomi has been gaining traction in the local market here in Kenya, and it seems this growth is also being witnessed in the international market, according to new figures from Strategy Analytics.
Xiaomi’s remarkable growth
Strategy Analytics reports that the steady growth shown by Xiaomi led to it overtaking Apple as the number two vendor in the world in the second quarter of 2021, and it has now become the top seller in Europe for the first time.
Xiaomi claimed first place in Europe from Samsung with 12.7 million phones shipped in Q2, up 67.1 percent year-on-year. Samsung’s shipments on the other hand dropped by 7 percent in the same period to 12 million units. However, despite this drop, Samsung still remains the world’s biggest mobile phone vendor.
2020 was generally a tough year for most industries in Europe, and the smartphone market was no different. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic decreased demand significantly, while lockdowns around the world also caused supply-chain issues, causing a downturn for the industry.
In January 2021, Xiaomi had the lowest share of smartphone sales in Europe out of the three brands, at just 17.3% compared to Samsung’s 27.4% and Apple’s 33.6%. By the end of the second quarter of 2021, Xiaomi had leapfrogged both brands with a 27.2% share of smartphone sales in June. Xiaomi edged out Samsung at 26.9% and widened the gap with Apple, who had a 20.4% share of sales.
Rex Pascal, an editor at Trading Platforms, commented: “Xiaomi’s rise in Q2 2021, while opportunistic, was just the latest evidence of the brand’s rising influence in Europe. Considering the brand had less than a 5% share of smartphone sales just two years prior is a testament to the brand’s strong performance in recent years. In July, Xiaomi had reportedly passed Apple as the world’s second-largest smartphone maker, proving that its influence in the European continent is poised to grow even more in the coming years.”
Reasons for Xiaomi’s remarkable growth
Xiaomi’s focus on value has been touted as one of the main reasons for the Chinese company’s tremendous sales in Q2, 2021. Offering devices spotting high performance chipsets at very affordable prices is bound to turn heads, and Xiaomi is reaping the benefits now.
“Xiaomi has seen great success in Russia, Ukraine, Spain and Italy among others and found customers eager for its Mi and Redmi series of feature-rich, value smartphones,” said Boris Metodiev, Associate Director at Strategy Analytics, in a statement to The Verge.
In one of our recent reviews of Xiaomi’s hardware, looking at the company’s flagship Mi 11, we were impressed by the phone’s value. “It costs less than the $799 (Kshs 88,000) Galaxy S21 in markets where it’s sold, but in many ways, it has more in common with the $1,199 (Kshs 130,000) S21 Ultra,” noted reviewer Sam Byford. “My biggest takeaway from the Mi 11 is that Samsung is lucky Xiaomi doesn’t sell phones in the US.”
Xiaomi fighting it out with the big boys, Samsung’s Galaxy and Apple’s iPhone, might be just what the smartphone market needs to push each other in innovation and prices so that at the end of it all, consumers can enjoy great devices at fair prices and to also put an end to anti-consumer behaviour such as dropping wall chargers and earphones from devices.
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