Xiaomi Is World’s Third-Largest Smartphone Company, And It Can Thank India

One man’s ‘tragedy’ can be another’s opportunity. This seems to be the case in the global smartphone market where Chinese brand Huawei has been bleeding for a while because of the ‘ban’ imposed by US and Donald Trump. Huawei’s loss has been Xiaomi’s gain. At least that’s what the latest report by Strategy Analytics suggests.
As per a report by Strategy Analytics, Xiaomi has become the third largest smartphone brand in the world. In the month of February, Xiaomi shipped 6 million smartphone units across the world. India has always been a key market for Xiaomi and its sales in the country would’ve played an integral part. There were earlier reports that Xiaomi’s sales in its home country were falling down but have been on the up in India. For a while now, Xiaomi has been the number one brand in the country, clocking more sales than its competitors, including Samsung and Vivo. Reports have also suggested how Xiaomi has made in-roads in the European markets as well.

Xiaomi’s strategy in India has been about offering feature-laden smartphones at really competitive pricing. Even though Xiaomi — and everyone else’s — shipments across the world fell down drastically in February, overall the brand has gained over Huawei.

Huawei clocked in 5.5 million of shipments across the world in February. But the last 6-8 months have been anything but easy for the Chinese tech giant. There has been a ban by Google which doesn’t allow Huawei to have Google apps in its phones. As a result of this, the sales of Huawei smartphones have been restricted largely to China only. No new Huawei smartphone has been launched in India in the last few months and there’s a sense of uncertainty around them. Huawei has been fighting back with the launch of its own apps that could rival Google but it’s still early days.

Overall, smartphone shipments across the world fell by 38%, which is one of the biggest fall the industry has seen in sometime. The coronavirus pandemic has had an impact on all industries across the world, including smartphone.

—Gadgets Now