Recognition: Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority
- Canalys reports that Xiaomi got past Apple to take second place in Europe.
- Apple is still ahead of Xiaomi in Western Europe, the research company notes.
- However, Oppo saw the most impressive growth among the top five players.
The smartphone reports for the first quarter of 2021 were recently released and all of them show that Xiaomi is on Apple’s heels in second place in terms of global market share. Now at least one tracking company has announced that Xiaomi has already overtaken Cupertino in an important battlefield region.
According to Canalys’ findings from the first quarter of 2021 (h / t: Redmi GM Lu Weibing via Weibo), Xiaomi has passed Apple in Europe and is second in the region behind Samsung. In particular, Xiaomi is said to have a 23% share in the region, compared to 19% for Apple. The tracking company added that Xiaomi saw 85% year-over-year growth in Europe, compared to 22% for Apple.
It’s worth noting that Xiaomi is a relatively new entrant in Europe, and most importantly, it has phones that are good value for money and that increase in volume. Apple has now been present in Europe for over a decade and remains largely in the premium segment. However, this is still a big win for Xiaomi as Europe is one of several major smartphone markets. The Chinese brand has also launched more premium devices lately, so we need to see how this pays off.
Canalys also made it clear that Xiaomi was still lagging behind Apple when they limited the scope to Western Europe and had a 17% market share versus Apple’s 25%. So it’s clear that Eastern Europe is responsible for a ton of Xiaomi’s growth in the larger European context.
Another interesting takeaway from these graphs is that Huawei is currently in a major free fall due to US sanctions. The company is now fifth with a market share of 3% in Europe and Western Europe, just behind fourth-placed Oppo. In fact, Oppo posted growth of 153% and 197% respectively. It’s unclear whether this growth was due to Oppo’s relatively recent entry into Europe, Huawei’s demise, or other factors.
Do you think Xiaomi will overtake Samsung for the top spot in Europe? Let us know via the poll below.
