Lenovo ships record 32.8 million smartphones worldwide in past 6 months, but it’s losing ground in China

Lenovo’s newest earnings report, released this afternoon, shows that the Chinese company shipped 32.8 million smartphones worldwide in the six months ended September 30. That’s a record high, up 38 percent from the same period a year ago and outpacing the 25 percent growth in smartphone shipments in general.

Lenovo credited this phone growth to “aggressive business expansion in emerging markets outside of China.” Indeed, markets outside of China now account for 20 percent of its shipped smartphones, which is up from nine percent a year ago.

While those numbers look promising, they mask the fact that Lenovo seems to have slipped in China, losing a lot of ground to more affordable devices from Xiaomi. Earlier this week, IDC said that Xiaomi has grown to become the world’s third biggest smartphone brand in terms of shipments, overtaking Lenovo, which is quite a feat since the majority of Xiaomi’s sales are to mainland China. (Granted, IDC pushed Xiaomi back to fourth once the Lenovo-Motorola deal was confirmed, but the point stands about Lenovo-brand phones.)

Lenovo was hoping to beat Samsung in China this year in terms of phones sales, but it might prove to have been bested by Xiaomi once end-of-year sales figures are out. Figures from Canalys suggest Xiaomi shipped more phones than anyone in China in Q2; Samsung was second, Lenovo third.

Elsewhere in Lenovo land, its quarterly profits rose 19 percent to US$262 million, and revenue rose seven percent to US$10.5 billion. However, Lenovo’s revenues from smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices fell six percent.

See: Xiaomi sells 26.1 million smartphones in first half of 2014, still on target for 60 million this year