Beijing: Fired by big success in the Indian market, three Chinese smartphone brands -- Huawei, OPPO and Xiaomi -- emerged among top five global brands next to Samsung and Apple.
The Chinese smartphone manufacturers wrapped up 2017 on a strong note, capturing three of the top spots on International Data Corp's (IDC) Top Five Smartphone Company list and substantially outpacing dominant global players in shipment growth, official media here reported.
The fast growth of shipments by Huawei Technologies Co, OPPO Electronics Corp and Xiaomi Inc in 2017, when the total global smartphone market saw declines in shipments, can be attributed to the companies' overseas expansion in countries such as India as well as improvements in the quality and technology levels of their handsets, two Chinese experts said.
While South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co and US-based Apple Inc took the top two spots on IDC's Top Five Smartphone Company list for 2017, released on Sunday, the three Chinese vendors - Huawei, OPPO and Xiaomi - took the rest of the top three spots.
Huawei shipments surged 9.9 per cent year-on-year to 153.1 million units in 2017, while OPPO's rose 12 per cent to 111.8 million and Xiaomi's jumped 74.5 per cent to 92.4 million, according to IDC.
Samsung's shipments grew 1.9 per cent to 317.3 million and Apple's shipments rose just 0.2 per cent to 215.8 million, it said.
"With the Chinese smartphone sector maturing in recent years, Chinese smartphone manufacturers have focused on overseas markets and they have had great successes in markets such as India. These successes have really helped Chinese brands," Wang Yanhui, head of the Shanghai-based Mobile China Alliance said on Monday.
Wang said that after its aggressive effort to expand its presence in India, including launching its newest handset, adding local partners and bringing Bollywood stars into the marketing campaign, Xiaomi beat Samsung as the top smartphone brand in India in the fourth quarter of 2017.
In the quarter, Xiaomi shipped 8.2 million smartphones, compared with Samsung's 7.3 million, and Xiaomi commanded 27 percent of India's market, compared with Samsung's 25 per cent.