SEOUL, KOREA - China’s new smartphone manufacturers are growing at a remarkable pace, putting more pressure on Korea’s smartphone makers.The rapid growth of Chinese rivals is burdensome not only to the front-runner Samsung Electronics but to the latecomer LG Electronics.
According to E-Trade Securities on July 23, the combined market share of Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc. stood at 39.9 percent in June 2014. This is the first time in 21 months for this combined market share to fall below 40 percent.
The combined market share of Samsung and Apple, which rose up to 55 percent early last year, has declined sharply over the past one year.
Their market share was taken by China’s smartphone makers. Xiaomi, for example, which is called a Chinese version of Apple, marked a 250-percent growth in shipments last month, while the sales of Lenovo and Huawei grew 153 percent and 61 percent, respectively, year on year.
Key factors behind the eye-popping growth of Chinese smartphone suppliers include the increase in exports. The share of exports in the overall sales of China’s five major smartphone makers—Lenovo, Xiaomi, Huawei, ZTE, and Coolpad – jumped to 31 percent in the second quarter of this year from 14 percent a year ago.