Expanding Wings Amid Huawei Ban: Xiaomi Becomes World’s Second Top-Selling Brand

Xiaomi Corp is a Chinese multinational electronics company. Even though the company is not as big as its rival Huawei in terms of market share, it has outdone the former as its revenue surged in the second quarter (June)— a record 64 percent from a year earlier, beating analyst expectations.

Xiaomi’s global smartphone market grew by leaps and bounds, while its Internet-of-Things product segment showed considerable growth.

Clearly, the US government’s sanctions against Huawei have allowed Xiaomi to grow its market share. Other players including Oppo and Vivo have also benefitted from the Huawei ban. The Donald Trump-led government sanctioned Huawei that effectively crippled the company’s smartphone division.

On top of that, Huawei’s CFO, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada in December 2018. The United States had issued an arrest warrant; as a result, she was detained at Vancouver International Airport. She allegedly misled HSBC about her company’s dealings in Iran. As of now, she remains in the custody.

As mentioned above, Xiaomi’s global smartphone market share hit a record high of 83 percent year on year, in the June quarter. The numbers were released by a research firm called Canalys. Xiaomi is well ahead of Apple in terms of the number of phones sold. Overall, the smartphone maker secured second position selling 52.8 phones worldwide. Samsung tops the list of smartphone makers with the most number of units sold.