China’s upstart smartphone maker, Xiaomi, has overtaken Samsung as the biggest smartphone vendor in China, intensifying pressure on the South Korean technology company.
In the second quarter of this year, Xiaomi took a 14 percent market share in volume China – the world’s largest smartphone market – knocking Samsung off the top spot for the first time since the end of 2011, according to research by Canalys.
The news comes after Samsung reported a larger-than-expected fall in second-quarter profit last week, citing slowing smartphone sales growth. In spite of being the world’s largest smartphone vendor, increasing competition from low-cost Chinese vendors is taking its toll on Samsung where operating profits for the mobile business, its cash cow, plunged 30 percent on the same period last year.
(Source: CNBC)