Lenovo overtakes rival Xiaomi as top-selling Chinese smartphone brand in India

As Xiaomi announced that it was beginning manufacturing in India, new statistics show that it and rival Huawei have both been overtaken by Lenovo as the top Chinese smartphone maker in the subcontinent. 

Lenovo was the lone Chinese brand among India’s top-five smartphone suppliers in the quarter ended June 30.

Data from technology research firm IDC showed that smartphone shipments to India increased 44 per cent in the second quarter to 26.5 million units, up from 18.4 million in the same period last year.

READ MORE: Xiaomi starts making phones in India through partnership with Apple supplier Foxconn

Kiranjeet Kaur, the research manager at IDC's Asia-Pacific mobile phone team, said Chinese suppliers Lenovo, Xiaomi, Huawei and Gionee accounted for 12 per cent of the total smartphones shipped last quarter.

“As China started to slow down, most vendors from that country targeted India as the next big growth market for smartphones,” Kaur said. 

It was Lenovo, the world’s largest supplier of personal computers, which made it among the top-five brands in the world’s fastest-growing smartphone market last quarter.

Lenovo, which acquired Google’s Motorola Mobility smartphone business last year, captured a 6 per cent market share to rank fifth among India’s biggest smartphone suppliers, according to IDC.