Xiaomi becomes world’s second largest smartphone maker, beats Apple

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Xiaomi has become the world’s second largest smartphone maker overtaking Apple in the last quarter of 2021, according to an estimate by Singapore-based market research firm Canalys.

This is the first time that the Chinese manufacturer has achieved this feat, faring just behind Samsung. Samsung and Apple have historically dominated the top two positions worldwide among smartphone manufacturers.

Global smartphone shipments grew 12% in the second quarter. The Chinese smartphone producer saw a hike in shipments of over 300% in Latin America, 150% in Africa and 50% in Western Europe, according to the report.

The Mi device maker has already contested the title of the biggest smartphone maker in China against Oppo and Vivo in the first half of the year.

Meanwhile, with a 10% share of global shipments each, Oppo and Vivo secured the Number 4 and 5 positions respectively in the top smartphone makers’ global ranking, the report said.

While Xiaomi witnessed a staggering growth of 83% in its global shipments, Samsung had a steady growth of 15% year-on-year, but Apple grew marginally by just 1%, the report showed. Oppo and Vivo shipments increased by 28% and 27% respectively.

Xiaomi’s aggressive marketing

The report mentioned that Huawei had briefly disrupted the rankings before sanctions cut it off from essential chip supplies last year.

Following its withdrawal from the highly competitive smartphone market, Xiaomi particularly became active, launching two flagship devices within the first four months of this year. It brought out the high-end Mi 11 Ultra with one of the largest camera sensors in a smartphone to date.

According to a Canalys Research manager, Xiaomi aims to grow sales of its high-end devices like the Mi 11 Ultra as its average selling price is around 40% and 75% cheaper than Samsung and Apple respectively.