Xiaomi has promised to overtake Apple and Samsung to become the world’s largest smartphone maker, but first it needs to overtake its fellow Chinese rival: Huawei. Whereas Xiaomi’s smartphones are more or less unobtainable here in the West, Huawei has become the first Chinese smartphone makers to establish a solid reputation here, and this has helped the company overtake Microsoft as the world’s third-largest smartphone maker.
Not even low-end feature phones have helped Microsoft retain its spot in the global handset list of leaders. The company’s total market share of handsets fell by nearly half while Huawei’s rose to surpass Microsoft’s share. Microsoft shipped 27.8 million phones this April to June; down from 50.3 million a year ago. Huawei, a China-based company, became the third largest phone vendor of both feature phones and smartphones in the second quarter of 2015, according to Strategy Analytics. That places Huawei behind only Samsung and Apple, which have long been the top two, although Samsung’s trend is falling. And the 30.6 million handsets that Huawei shipped during the quarter puts it well on track to top its internal goal of moving 100 million phones this year. Huawei’s biggest competitor in China, Xiaomi, is also on the way up, shipping 19.8 million phones in the second quarter of 2015; rising from 15.1 million in the year ago period.
