According to Counterpoint, in June it was estimated that Xiaomi’s global smartphone shipment market share was at around 17.1%, whereas Samsung’s was 15.7%. Coming in third was Apple at 14.3%. However, it should be noted that Counterpoint’s data is for June. If we’re looking at the entire quarter, Samsung is still clearly very much in the lead, but it’s interesting to see Xiaomi catching up.
Counterpoint believes that one of the reasons why Xiaomi managed to capture the number one position for June is because of the supply constraints due to the market situation in Vietnam, where Samsung manufactures and ships a bulk of its phones from. They believe that once this is rectified, Samsung should be back on the path to maintain their lead.
That being said, Xiaomi has a lot going for them especially when it comes to value for money phones. While they might not necessarily overtake Samsung in terms of flagships, their budget handsets might be enough for them to capture a larger slice of the pie, but we’ll have to wait and see how this plays out.