Three Chinese companies were ranked among the world’s top five smartphone vendors in the fourth quarter of last year, making China a strong competitor to traditional manufacturing countries such as the United States and South Korea.
More than 438 million mobile phones were shipped in the fourth quarter worldwide. the global smartphone market grew 37 percent year-on-year, industry research company Canalys said.
A model showing a Lenovo smartphone. Chinese cellphone producers, such as Lenovo, ZTE and Huawei, are becoming strong business competitors of Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co in the Chinese market. The market share of Chinese smartphone makers is growing fast but their profits still lag far behind the two big foreign rivals.
Chinese smartphone makers Huawei Technologies Co, ZTE Corp and Lenovo Group Ltd together shipped more than 31 million smartphones in the fourth quarter, while South Korean IT giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd rolled out 62.9 million units during the same period.
Apple Inc, in second place, built 47.8 million smartphones, making up less than 25 percent of the global market share.
By the end of February, China will have 246 million smart devices compared with 230 million in the US, the company estimated.
The volume of smartphones in China grew 113 percent year-on-year to 64.7 million units, with Samsung taking the top spot followed by the world’s top PC maker Lenovo. Targeting low-end markets, Shenzhen-based Yulong Telecommunications was ranked third, followed by Huawei and ZTE.
Lenovo will become the top smartphone vendor in China before the end of this year, IT advisory company Gartner Inc predicted in November.
Smartphones took 73 percent of the market share in China, the world’s largest phone market, according to Canalys. The figure was 40 percent a year ago.
Smartphones running on Google Inc’s Android system accounted for a little more than one-third of the total shipment of mobile phones and Apple Inc’s iOS took 11 percent of the marketshare, Canalys said.
