Chinese companies take over the smartphone world

Jun 14, 2016 09:33 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft’s believed to be planning the demise of the Lumia lineup, and although the company doesn’t specifically say it, its mobile efforts will be directed entirely to the Surface Phone, which is eagerly awaited by everyone in the community in the spring of 2017.

And while the uncertainty regarding Microsoft’s mobile strategy deepens, new statistics show that the company is very likely to be out of the world’s top 12 phone makers, with sales expected to drop below 15 million units this year.

New statistics provided by IC Insights show that Samsung is believed to top this year’s smartphone sales with an estimated of 320 million sold units, down 1 percent from 2015 figures but still strong enough to maintain the difference versus Apple.

The Cupertino-based iPhone maker, on the other hand, is likely to post a decline of 3 percent versus 2015, so it will register sales of 225 million units this year, but it’ll continue to be the second company in the charts.

The Chinese domination

And then, the Chinese domination begins. Huawei is likely to snatch the third place with a growth of 29 percent and sales of 135 million devices, while Oppo, Xiaomi, and Vivo, all from China, are expected to come next. LG from South Korea and then four other companies based in China, namely ZTE, Lenovo, TCL, and Meizu, will benefit from strong sales. India’s Micromax will be the 12th company in the chart with sales of 25 million units, up 74 percent over the previous year.

Microsoft, on the other hand, is collapsing in the mobile industry while the growth experienced by the Chinese manufacturers contributes to a switch of places that would leave the software giant out of this chart.

“Although Microsoft announced it intends to sell its non-smartphone business later this year, its early 2016 Lumia smartphones shipments put it on a path to sell less than 15 million units in 2016,” IC Insights says.

Now the hope is that the Surface Phone would make Microsoft more relevant in the mobile industry when it launches in spring 2017, but on the other hand, nobody expects it to sell in big numbers, given the fact that it’ll be a super expensive device.