Across the globe, a golden year for China’s smartphone brands

Photo credit: Zol.com.cn.

China’s smartphone makers had a bumper 2016, luring in more buyers around the world than ever before.

In the ultra-competitive global smartphone market, three Chinese brands made up the top five, collectively shipping 316 million devices amid a global total last year of 1.47 billion, according to data from IDC.

The record high of 316 million – covering Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo, which were behind Samsung and Apple – highlighted how China’s phone makers have exploded in the past few years, seeing growth everywhere from India to Brazil.

Looking only at Chinese brands that are identified by IDC as being in the global top five, the boom looks like this:

See: Chinese smartphones are killing it in India

Toppling Samsung’s statue?

In another major milestone, China’s top smartphone makers for the first time collectively outsold Samsung (311.4 million) last year. The Korean titan has ruled the roost since 2011.

Huawei, China’s top seller since it slid into the global top five in 2013, has the best chance of vanquishing Samsung. The firm – after hitting new highs with 139.3 million smartphone shipments, accounting for 9.5 percent of the market – wants to surpass Apple to become the second largest brand by 2018, according to Richard Yu, boss of Huawei’s consumer business group.

Scarlet Johansson gets to grips with Huawei. GIF by Tech in Asia; from Huawei ad.