Xiaomi tops a surging Apple in China for Q4 2014; Samsung slumps

Data released by IDC reveals that Xiaomi finished on top of the Chinese smartphone market for all of 2014 and for the fourth quarter of the year. From October through December, the red hot manufacturer accounted for 13.7% of smartphone shipments in the country, up 150% from the prior year's 6.5% share. On a sequential basis, Xiaomi's share rose from the 14.8% of the market it owned in the third quarter of last year.

Apple's rise to second place for the quarter was nearly as impressive. Led by the larger screened Apple iPhone 6 and Apple iPhone 6 Plus, the company was responsible for 12.3% of smartphone shipments in China for the last quarter of the year. That is a 99.7% year-over-year gain from the 7.4% of the market owned by Apple in the final three months of 2013. The fourth quarter numbers for Apple were truly impressive compared to the 5% market share it owned for the third quarter of 2014.

Huawei was third with 11%, followed by the 9.5% belonging to Lenovo. Samsung had a terrible fourth quarter with its share of Chinese smartphone shipments dropping sharply from the year earlier. In the fourth quarter of 2013, Samsung had 18.8% of the Chinese market. That figure declined to 7.9% for the last three months of 2014.

For all of 2014, Xiaomi owned a 12.5% slice of the Chinese smartphone pie, up from 5.3% for 2013. Samsung managed to grab second place with 12.1% of the market, down from the prior year's 18.7%. Lenovo (11.2%), Huawei (9.8%) and Coolpad (9.4%) round out the top five.


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source: GizmoChina