Chinese manufacturer ZTE (HKG:0763; SHE:000063) issued an announcement today pointing at something that we missed in the recent Q2 mobile shipment figures from research firm IDC. The company points out that for the first time it has broken into the top five of the world largest smartphone makers.
IDC notes that ZTE’s jump can largely be attributed to its strong performance at home in China, as well as improved international sales in the US and Latin America. Unfortunately, looking at the company’s business overall tells a slightly different story as profits are estimated to be down 60 to 80 percent compared to last year, which may be due to possible issues with China’s major telecoms.
Who did ZTE knock off to get there? If you guessed RIM, then you have made a logical inference!
In the first quarter of 2012 RIM sat in fourth position with 6.7 percent market share, just ahead of HTC at 4.8 percent. But both HTC and ZTE have leapfrogged the Canadian phone maker to the tune of 5.7 and 5.2 percent respectively for the second quarter.
Of course, the other big winner in the smartphone sweepstakes (as you may have heard by now) is Samsung which gained 7.5 percent market share in Q2.
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