Xiaomi, a smartphone maker based in China, sold more devices in its home market during the second quarter than Samsung, the world’s No. 1 supplier of devices. Samsung owned the Chinese smartphone market for more than two years, but data from Canalys says its reign has come to an end.
Indian budget smartphone maker Micromax has ousted Samsung Electronics Co Ltd as the leading brand in all types of mobile phones in the April-June quarter, grabbing a 16.6 percent market share, a recent research report showed.
Great news for consumers and the market in general. This will drive prices down, foster competition, and increase choice. We all win.
Now, if only Europe had its own smartphone maker. And what about South-America?
Xiaomi makes Samsung look like original thinkers.
Behold the revolutionary power of iPhone: The only smartphones that sell well are Apple iPhones and fake Apple iPhones.
“[Steve] Jobs will die someday, so there are still opportunities for us. The meaning of our existence is just waiting for him to kick the bucket.†– Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun, August 30, 2011
On a side note, Xiaomi employs Hugo Barra the former vice president of Google’s Android
You’re not wrong, but I don’t understand your point.
I think you’re either not trying to make a point and just stating that you don’t like xiaomi because of those facts, or you’ve only made half a point. The other half would be something like: ” Due to the level of copying, I don’t think Xiaomi can compete in US or European markets without being sued, as Samsung was “.
Xiaomi has been selling their phones and tablets in Europe for a while now. They just stay out of Germany where Apple seems to have a strong hold over the government.
https://www.digitec.ch/de/Search?q=Xiaomi
Edited 2014-08-06 08:00 UTC
Just like the laptop market its a race to the bottom with razor thin margins. What advantage does a Samsung device have over a Huawei or anyone else? It’s all android, and so far Samsung’s layers of crapware aren’t exactly a value add.
Apple is long past the phase of dominance from moving first, but they will continue to do well because they have a unique product. Without that you have to compete on price
In a way it kind of shows that google was wise in not going after the hardware side.
It does seem that innovation in the smartphone market is slowing and that traditional big markets are getting to a saturation point.
Of course none of this stops google from getting their data mining, service and advertising moneys.
Google makes nothing from the growing number of Android devices that come from outside the Open Handset Alliance and which don’t bundle it’s service stack. Google is finding it very difficult to propagate it’s services (and therefore it’s revenue base) in China. That may be a significant problem going forward.
Google is dependent on OEMs to propagating it’s services and at the same time it’s Android ecosystem model (which more or less diverts all service related income to Google) squeezes OEMs revenue earning abilities and creates a reason to ditch Google’s services if that can be done without endangering the ability to sell devices. At the moment the main place where it is possible to ditch Google services is China, unfortunately for Google it’s precisely in China that a great deal of the future growth in mobile devices will occur.
http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/08/05/google-under-threat-as-fork…
Only if you think about innovation in a narrow hardware only way. Modern devices are a blend of hardware, services and ecosystem. Innovation can occur in all those areas and in the relationship between them.
Edited 2014-08-05 22:45 UTC
The innovation I can’t wait for is long battery life. I was really hoping that would come in the next generation of smartphones but it seems they are more interested in thin than a phone that lasts a few days on a charge instead of just one.
In regard to the US, I can walk into just about any store that sells cell phones and actually put my hands on a Samsung phone, which to me is HUGE. I want to know what a phone feels like in my hand before purchasing, as in does it fit comfortably?
At this point, I’m not sure if there’s any place local to try out one of these ‘knock-off’ phones that can compete with the S5 spec-wise. I’m also not sure if I’d be able to find any decent accessories for them either. From what I can see, any of these phones, like the OnePlus One that really are decent, are also too damn big. People in China and India must have huge, Saskwatch hands or something.
People in China buy big phones for the same reason they buy big cars. It’s a conspicuous display of wealth.
Specs on the xiaomis look impressive…except for a couple of (to me) important features.
Sad the battery isn’t user replaceable. Sad no microsd slot.
It’s like they want you to buy a new phone after 18 months.
Yay, a flood of cheap knockoff products that overflow the market draining most of the profit in the process resulting in much slower product innovation.
You can say a lot about Samsung with their TouchWiz interface and and urge to cram every sensor they can find into their phones, but at least they try to find their own path (including some copying, everybody does it to some degree). Just too bad they are totally hopeless when it comes to software design in general, even seems to get worse with each new “smart” TV generation. But at least they have a knack for doing hardware development and help drive the industry forward in that area.
But these new manufacturers what do they bring, other than poaching the work of everyone else and selling it cheaply?
Off topic, but my whining about their shoddy software got me thinking, can anyone actually mention any really good software being designed and developed in asia? I hope the answer is a big yes, but i am currently blank.
What, you forgot about all great Japanese games?… And arguably a lot of embedded software in electronics – it’s really good if it’s invisible.
Also, of the software I’m familiar with, Foxit is Chinese. And LXDE originated in Taiwan. Plus, I suspect Wikipedia has categories “software developed in China/India/…” and so on, but I’m too lazy to check.
PS. Small follow-up: I did a quick search in free time, and it seems there are no “software developed in China/India/…” categories on Wikipedia after all…
But there are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_games_by_country …where Japan of course dwarfs almost everybody else (and I suspect that number is still under-reported, on EN Wiki); also South Korea has quite respectable number (how could I forget about GunBound?!
); and I suspect China is simply vastly under-reported (judging from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_gaming_in_China article; which also links to few notable games in its introduction and further down)
Some other links that showed up:
Not “software” but: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Software_companies_by_country
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_industry_in_China & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Software_Industry_Association with links to some respectable, I guess, Chinese software companies and software parks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalian_Software_Park
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics_industry_in_China
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:IT_consulting_and_outsourcing…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRON_project – one of most used operating systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_(application) one of the biggest IM networks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangame large South Korean online gaming portal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOMOYO_Linux japanese …and generally, you could browse sourceforge.jp top projects
Now that I think about it, you could ask on slashdot.jp ;P
Oh, and Alibaba.com is not exactly software, but certainly ~revolutionary ;p
Edited 2014-08-13 00:14 UTC
Well… if South-America had it own smartphone maker…
Imports of “foreing” products would be taxed to foster the local manufacturer, prices would fold 3 times and quality drop to a 1/4, so… thanks, but no thanks
Edited 2014-08-05 20:25 UTC
We already have overtaxed smartphones here in South America, we just do not have local builders. Foxconn and the likes just assemble imported (overtaxed?) parts. Even Positivo (brazilian local builder) imports smartphones to sell here.
I don’t know about south-america, but Mexico has its own smartphone maker.
http://www.lanixmobile.com/
Also, we are miles away from having a processors manufacture. The only thing CEITEC (a government company founded to develop microprocessors) was able to do until now is a cow tracking earring. So basically, ALL important components like screen, co-processors, GPU, CPU have to be imported, we only have technology for creating the boards and shells.
So there is little sense in trying to push for a “national industry”, throught high importing taxes, while we don’t have technology. But still, governments do exactly that!
You all have Jolla and Geeksphone (as far as I know).
In South America things are sadder; maybe Brazil can surprise us with some development in house, but I am just speculating right here.
You are talking about countries that are 99% poor, these changes are those people who can’t afford a Samsung flagship mobile, those who can afford them will continue to buy them. I work in China and see nothing but Samsung with a handful of iPhones
I will hardly believe that. Even here in my country there are at least two smartphone makers(not counting My|Phone), but their market is domestic only as far as I know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_makers_by_country…
I wonder if the success of Xiaomi is owing in part to the excellent MIUI, which in my opinion is a better Android than Android. I run MIUI on my Galaxy S3, and it’s so much better than the stock OS that it’s not even funny.
What’s even funnier I find it a better then iOS, even though it’s a blatant UI copycat. It pisses me off to no end that Apple treats it’s users like their morons.
unfortunately for europe, it was nokia.
well there is also alcatel (lol)
There are dozens and dozens of smartphones manufacturers in Europe and latin America. Wiko is kind of successful in my country (France) :
http://fr.wikomobile.com/
You will never hear of local brands in Europe or Latin America because the local brands sell well only in their home country or even smaller region. Of course when that region is India or China it is a whole different story. France has 65 million people. Both India and China have more than 1 billion people. Nobody cares about the french market. Look Jolla. European brand, doesn’t even care about its own market, they sell their phone in China. It’s all about Asia, because that’s where most people live.
Yes and I am very happy with my 3 years “old” Wiko smart-phone. It has all, double sims, cheap and solid.
It is an every day good surprise to me.
The next try may be a OneTouch (ex-Alcatel Team).
Ho and I am not French.
Do you remember the good’ol’ One Touch Easy ?
Heavy as a cabin, still have one, still working ! 😎