Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker, has dethroned Samsung, the South Korean tech giant, to become the largest smartphone brand in the world for the month of June 2021.
According to the latest month-to-month projections by analysis agency Counterpoint, Xiaomi’s monthly sales witnessed a hike of 26% in June 2021, which helped it go past Samsung in terms of global monthly smartphone sales (sell-through) volumes. It was also the number two brand globally for Q2 2021 in terms of sales.
Xiaomi edged out Samsung and Apple by 17.1 to 15.7 and 14.3 percent market shares respectively to jump up to the number one position in June 2021 for the first time ever.
Previously, Xiaomi had surpassed Apple to become the second-leading global smartphone brand. It also recently overtook Samsung in Europe for Q2 2021.
“Ever since the decline of Huawei commenced, Xiaomi has been making consistent and aggressive efforts to fill the gap created by this decline. The OEM has been expanding in Huawei’s and HONOR’s legacy markets like China, Europe, Middle East, and Africa,” said Tarun Pathak, Research Director at Counterpoint.
“In June, Xiaomi was further helped by China, Europe, and India’s recovery and Samsung’s decline due to supply constraints,” he added.
“China’s market grew 16% MoM in June driven by the 618 festival, with Xiaomi being the fastest growing OEM, riding on its aggressive offline expansion in lower-tier cities and solid performance of its Redmi 9, Redmi Note 9 and the Redmi K series,” Senior Analyst Varun Mishra said commenting on the China market and Samsung supply constraints.
At the same time, Samsung’s fall to second place could be partly attributed to the fact that its production was disrupted in June by Vietnam’s fresh COVID-19 wave, which resulted in the brand’s devices facing shortages across channels. Samsung manufactures and ships a large portion of its smartphones in Vietnam.
“Xiaomi, with its strong mid-range portfolio and wide market coverage, was the biggest beneficiary from the short-term gap left by Samsung’s A series,” Mishra added.
According to Counterpoint, once the COVID-19 situation in Vietnam improves and with the release of Galaxy Z Fold3, Z Flip3, new Buds, and Watch series devices right around the corner, Samsung could likely reconquer the top position once again.
