How Tight Is Smartphone Market? Xiaomi Joins Samsung, Apple in Top 3 for Only a Few Hours

[StarCraft_ZT]

How Tight Is Smartphone Market? Xiaomi Joins Samsung, Apple in Top 3 for Only a Few Hours - Bloomberg

Only three years after launching its first mobile device, China's Xiaomi leapt to third place in global smartphone shipments, trailing market leaders Samsung and Apple.

Those bragging rights lasted about 8 hours.

The press release from International Data Corp. at about 10 a.m. Beijing time heralding Xiaomi's rise to the top three in the third quarter, after more than tripling shipments in the period, was followed by one at 6 p.m. from Lenovo announcing the completion of its purchase of Motorola Mobility from Google.

Guess what? Closing the Motorola deal makes Lenovo No. 3, according to Lenovo and analysts at IDC and Strategy Analytics.

The back and forth in rankings highlights how competitive the global smartphone market has become. While Samsung and Apple sit at the top, with market share of 23.8 percent and 12 percent, respectively, the next three players were separated by just 0.2 percentage points before Lenovo absorbed Motorola, according to IDC.

Xiaomi had 5.3 percent of the global market in the third quarter, compared with Lenovo's 5.2 percent before taking over Motorola, while South Korea's LG Electronics had a 5.1 percent share. As this chart shows, the three of them -- before the Motorola news -- were practically in a dead heat in this period.

The race is already so tight that researchers can't agree on the rankings beyond the top three. Like IDC, data from Strategy Analytics has Samsung, Apple and Xiaomi in the lead in the third quarter, but rounds out the top five with LG in fourth with a 5.2 percent share and Huawei Technologies in fifth place with 5.1 percent.

Completing the Motorola acquisition should give Lenovo a bit of breathing room. A combined Lenovo and Motorola would have given it an 8 percent share in the period, putting it well ahead of Xiaomi and Huawei, according to researcher Strategy Analytics.

"With the addition of Motorola, the company is now the third-largest vendor globally in terms of smartphone unit shipments, trailing only Samsung and Apple," said Technology Business Research analyst Jack Narcotta. "Motorola’s stable of devices and intellectual property will help Lenovo corral the chaos in emerging markets such as China and India, allowing Lenovo to vault over Xiaomi, Huawei and LG and establish itself as the default choice for consumers seeking an entry-level or mid-tier Android smartphone."

Xiaomi wouldn't comment about its competitors, but Tony Wei, a spokesman, said the company was "proud of our remarkable growth."

One thing is clear. The fight is far from over.

One reason is that China, the world's largest smartphone market, has become saturated, forcing local vendors to look abroad, Lenovo Chief Executive Officer Yang Yuanqing said in an interview.

"If you only play in China, that's not enough," Yang said. "You must win in the global market."

Look for even more volatility in those quarterly global smartphone rankings.

 

[cirr]

A 3.85mm-thick phone? Chinese company Vivo says it's coming

Chinese smartphone maker Vivo hints at a spectacularly slim smartphone, one-upping Oppo's 4.85mm-thick R5.

By Francis Bea

October 31, 2014 5:12 AM PDT

Weibo

Oppo may have just released the world's thinnest smartphone with the 4.85mm R5, but the company's new-found fame may not last. A trending Weibo postshowcasing images of a smartphone by China's Vivo offers a glimpse at a device that's just 3.85mm thick.

In one of the published images, the mysterious Vivo device is posed next to aniPhone 5S, making the claim that it's just one half the width of the 7.6mm-wide Apple device.

Vivo is one of China's myriad of phone makers, less well known in the US, UK and Australia than major players such as Xiaomi, Oppo and Huawei. It has a history of one-upping its more illustrious rivals though -- its Xplay 3S phone was the first to boast a "2K" display, with a 2,560x1,440-pixel resolution.

Vivo has yet to reveal its ludicrously thin smartphone's specs. But to develop such a thin device, it will have no choice but to sacrifice battery life, a microSD slot and even an audio jack for your headphone -- Oppo's R5 is missing the latter two features.

At a time when all smartphone makers are struggling to differentiate their products, will boasting the thinnest chassis really make a device more competitive? Or will people simply see it as yet another gimmick? Let me know what you think.

A 3.85mm-thick phone? Chinese company Vivo says it's coming - CNET

 

[cirr]

Xiaomi Continues to Dominate China's Smartphone Market: Survey

Press Trust of India, November 03, 2014

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi continued to dominate the China's smartphone market as two of the company's models topped the sales charts in the third quarter.

The company secured 30.3 percent of the market share in China, followed by Samsung with an 18.4 percent share in three months ending September, UK-based market research company Kantar Worldpanel Comtech said on Saturday.

Xiaomi shipped 18 million units of smartphones in the third quarter, an increase of 18 percent from the previous quarter, the company's founder and CEO Lei Jun recently posted on his Sina Weibo microblog, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

For the first nine months, Xiaomi, whose name translates into the grain "millet", shipped a total of 44 million units, he said.

The company's Red Rice 1S and Rice Note models have topped the sales charts in China during the third quarter.

The company was founded in April 2010 by Lei and his friends in Zhongguancun, Beijing's technology hub, dubbed as China's Silicon Valley.

Earlier another global market researcher International Data Corporation (IDC) said in a report that Xiaomi jumped into the top 5 manufacturers list for the first time thanks to its focus on China and adjacent markets, which resulted in triple-digit year-over-year growth.

In the third quarter of this year, Xiaomi's global market share stood at 5.3 percent, following Samsung's 23.8 percent and Apple's 12 percent, according to IDC.

The key to Xiaomi's success was the launch of its Mi 4 smartphone in August, which was positioned as a high-end alternative to the status quo, it said.

"What remains to be seen is how quickly the company can move beyond its home territories to drive volumes higher," the report said.

Earlier the company was in news for migrating data of its non-Chinese customersfrom its servers in Beijing to Amazon AWS data centres in California (US) and Singapore.

Indian Air Force (IAF) personnel and their families had been asked not to use the company's Redmi 1S phones on the grounds of security risk.

Xiaomi had said it was migrating some data of non-Chinese customers away from its servers in Beijing due to performance and privacy considerations.

 

[Rajaraja Chola]

Xiomi phones are real good.. My friend got it, and its User Interface is another level, though it contains many levels of customization, which is fine.
However other phones like Oppo, Gionee arent near to the competition, yet, and their display sucks.. Lenovo have a good share in market, thanks to their laptops..
Micromax is the real leader in India behind Samsung. Xiomi and Moto are reaching fast..

 

[mike2000]

Its indeed impressive to see how fast Chinese tech companies are moving up the technological ladder. Its even more surprising since most people in the west (like me) have never heard of some of these companies bar lenovo and to some extent Huawei . I had never heard of xiaomi nor oppo or gionnee etc. I just heard about them on here in PDF. When I tried to make some research on Google about this xiaomi which people seem to make a lot of fuss about on here, I was surprised to find out that the company is about to raise billions of dollars of financing round this coming month which will value the company at about 40billion dollars.

This came as a shock to me, since it will mean xiaomi will be twice Sony market value and bigger than even lenovo, and it will be the worlds largest private startup by far. For a company I have never heard of in my life(same with many people in U.K/west) its indeed shocking/surprising.

Anyway I welcome this competition, since it brings down the price for us consumers, since companies like Samsung and apple over charge us while not offering anything special. I myself had to dispose of my samsung(whose screen seem to broke very easilly compared to other snartphones i have used before) for a moto g. Hopefully competition will make them think twice about overcharging their customers. Will be interesting to see how things pan out three years from now, maybe Samsung might be the next Sony who knows.

 

[war is peace]

EMike

Its indeed impressive to see how fast Chinese tech companies are moving up the technological ladder. Its even more surprising since most people in the west (like me) have never heard of some of these companies bar lenovo and to some extent Huawei . I had never heard of xiaomi nor oppo or gionnee etc. I just heard about them on here in PDF. When I tried to make some research on Google about this xiaomi which people seem to make a lot of fuss about on here, I was surprised to find out that the company is about to raise billions of dollars of financing round this coming month which will value the company at about 40billion dollars.

This came as a shock to me, since it will mean xiaomi will be twice Sony market value and bigger than even lenovo, and it will be the worlds largest private startup by far. For a company I have never heard of in my life(same with many people in U.K/west) its indeed shocking/surprising.

Anyway I welcome this competition, since it brings down the price for us consumers, since companies like Samsung and apple over charge us while not offering anything special. I myself had to dispose of my samsung(whose screen seem to broke very easilly compared to other snartphones i have used before) for a moto g. Hopefully competition will make them think twice about overcharging their customers. Will be interesting to see how things pan out three years from now, maybe Samsung might be the next Sony who knows.

E because these chinese companies focus on ther home market and lack worldwide marketing so we tend to not know them like you said xiaomi was unknown by you. Not forgeting the china repute

 

[cirr]

10/31/2014 @ 9:36AM 12,744 views

Xiaomi Aims To Raise At $40 Billion And Become World's Most Valuable Private Tech Firm

Xiaomi, the Chinese electronics manufacturer and fourth-largest smartphone maker in the world, is exploring the option of raising funding that could value the company at more than $40 billion.

Multiple sources confirmed to FORBES that the Beijing company is considering raising more money and possibly quadrupling its previous valuation of $10 billion, which it attained after an undisclosed amount of funding in August of last year. Prior to that Xiaomi, founded in 2010, had raised $216 million in June 2014 at $4 billion.

If Xiaomi is able to raise money at a valuation of $40 billion or higher, it would become the world’s most valuable private technology company and rank among the most valuable device manufacturers. At that amount, the company would be worth more than Sony, which has a market capitalization of $19.5 billion, and almost three times as much as the world’s third-largest smartphone maker Lenovo, which has a market value of $15.6 billion. A Xiaomi spokesperson declined to comment on whether the company was looking to raise money.

Less than five years old, Xiaomi is the vision of founder and CEO Lei Jun, a 44-year-old serial entrepreneur who is now worth $9.1 billion due to his company’s success. Long seen as China’s answer to Steve Jobs, Lei has long since given up mimicking the tech icon and Apple , which Xiaomi now outsells in its home country.

“If Jobs had lived in China, I think he could not have succeeded,” Lei told FORBES two years ago. “Jobs was a scrupulous perfectionist, while Chinese culture emphasizes the middle path.”

While Xiaomi has yet to surpass Apple, it’s gobbled up market share in Asian markets and is improving sales at a faster rate than any of the world’s top five smartphone manufacturers. In the third quarter, Xiaomi shipped 17.3 million units, up more than 200% from the same period last year according to a recent report from IDC. For comparison, Apple, which was the second-largest smartphone maker last quarter behind Samsung, shipped 39.3 million units, a 16% increase from the third quarter of 2013.

Those numbers are astounding for a company that didn’t exist five years ago and has yet to enter the American market. Now the top smartphone company in China, Xiaomi is branching out beyond its Android operating system-based phones into products like tablet computers. It’s also started expanding globally by sending its products to places like Singapore and India.

“Lei Jun is a visionary founder focused on cutting edge innovation,” DST Global’s Yuri Milner told FORBES in 2012. “He is surrounded by exceptionally strong team with unique product expertise.”

Milner’s firm is one of the handful investors in Xiaomi, a group that also includes Temasek Holdings, Qiming Venture Partners and Morningside Ventures. Sources did not say if Xiaomi had already begun discussions with potential investors for a new round of funding, though they did say that the company had turned down previous offers for funding at a valuation of about $30 billion.

Xiaomi reported sales in the first half of 2014 to be about $5.31 billion–up about 150% from last year—and those inside the company expect revenue to be more than $11 billion for the whole year. At a potential valuation of $40 billion, Xiaomi, which does not discuss profits but is reported to be profitable, would be trading at a little under four times projected 2014 revenues. Apple has a current price-to-sales ratio of 3.7.

This year, the global technology sector has seen a flurry of activity, highlighted by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group’s record-setting $25 billion initial public offering and a $1.2 billion investment in private on-demand car service Uber, which is now valued at $18.2 billion. If it lands funding at more than $40 billion valuation, Xiaomi will easily surpass Uber as the world’s highest-priced startup.

Samsung remains the top handset vendor in the world with 78.1 million units shipped last quarter. After Apple, Lenovo is the third-largest vendor following the completion of its acquisition of Motorla Mobility for $2.91 billion fromGoogle . Lenovo and Motorla’s combined accounted for 8.7% of the 328 million smartphone shipped in the third quarter, more than Xiaomi’s 5.3% market share.

 

[mike2000]

EMike
E because these chinese companies focus on ther home market and lack worldwide marketing so we tend to not know them like you said xiaomi was unknown byaou. Not forgeting the china repute

I agree bro. But then again they have to be ready to spend on marketing like Samsung does, else they might be huge/big but they will never be a global brand like say apple, Samsung, LG, and even lenovo (who is a Chinese exception as it tends to be more serious about marketing itself in the west/U.S which has made it quite popular here). So they have to learn from this, e they will be limited to dominating just China and Asia and nothing more. Here in the west, marketing/branding tend to be even more important than the product at times . So to break in they have to be ready to spend some bucks( and yes big bucks). No pain no gain.

 

[cirr]

China's Xiaomi to Invest $1 Billion in Video Content

8:17 PM PST 11/04/2014

By Clifford Coonan

AP Xiaomi's smartphones use the MIUI Android-based OS.

The smartphone maker is the latest Chinese tech firm to get into the entertainment industry

Chinese mobile-phone manufacturer Xiaomi will invest $1 billion in TV and video content, and has hired Chen Tong, a leading Internet executive from the online firm Sina, to oversee the fund.

Tong, Sina.com's editor-in-chief, will move to Xiaomi after working in Sina for 17 years, and will help the company expand its business in TV, set-top box and related-content business.

"Chen is familiar with social media and content," Lei Jun, Xiaomi's co-founder, said on his firm's Weibo microblog. "His joining will help diversify Xiaomi's engineering and designer talent structure and culture."

He will operate Xiaomi's TV and video content business with another Xiaomi co-founder, Wang Chuan.

Chinese tech firms are currently on the offensive in the entertainment industry. The Internet giants Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent are all setting up entertainment units, and buying and making content.

Xiaomi currently sells a Xiaomi TV, Mi TV, and a set-top box, Mi Box, and hopes to replicate the success of its hardware business in the TV industry.

Xiaomi is the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the world after Samsung and Apple.