Xiaomi fell out of the top-2 smartphone vendors in China in the fourth quarter of 2015, but remained the region's top smartphone vendor in all of the year.
According to IDC, Xiaomi continued to rank as the top smartphone vendor in the China market in 2015 with a 15% share. But second-ranked Huawei catched up narrowing its gap behind Xiaomi.
Huawei already overtook Xiaomi as the top smartphone vendor in China in the third quarter of 2015, according to a Canalys report in October 2015.
A recent IDC report noted that Xiaomi was replaced by Apple, which became the second-largest smartphone vendor in China in the fourth quarter of 2015. During the quarter, the market was led by Huawei with a 15.2% share, followed by Apple with 14.6% and Xiaomi 14.4%.
In all of 2015, Xiaomi reamined China's top smartphone vendor, but its shipment growth appeared less impressive than rivals Huawei and Apple. According to IDC, Xiaomi shipped a total of 64.9 million smartphones in China in 2015, representing an on-year increase of 23.2%, while Huawei and Apple both enjoyed more than 50% shipment growth in the region.
In 2015, second-ranked Huawei boosted its smartphone market share in China to 14.5% trailing closely behind Xiaomi with a 15% share, according to IDC. In 2014, Xiaomi grabbed a 12.4% share of the China smartphone market followed by Huawei with 9.7%.
"Xiaomi entered the market at a time when the China smartphone market was still growing, and was able to capture a significant market share with its disruptive sales model. Huawei, with its investments in R&D, strong products, branding and channel connections, saw it having significant growth in 2015. Apple, on the other hand, continues to be a strong and desirable brand in the eyes of the Chinese consumers," said Tay Xiaohan, senior market analyst with IDC Asia/Pacific's client devices team. "With the Chinese market now slowing down, it is unlikely that we will see any new players making a big impact on the smartphone market compared to the way Xiaomi did in the previous years."
