Samsung smart-phone outside top 5 in China

Samsung Electronics has failed to make it into the top five in the Chinese smart-phone market for the first time.

According to a report published on Friday by U.S.-based market research agency Strategy Analytics (SA), Samsung Electronics was not ranked among the top five most sold smart-phones in China in the last quarter of 2015 and the entire last year. Samsung Electronics had never been ranked outside the top five in a quarter or a year since 2012 when SA started collecting market data.

Samsung Electronics had been the largest seller in China since 2011 but lost its position for the first time to Xiaomi by 2.9 percent in the third quarter of 2014. In the following quarter, Samsung's market share dropped to one digit, caught up by Apple as well. In the first quarter of 2015, Samsung Electronics was ranked fourth while Huawei took third place.

According to the SA report, Samsung Electronics was the largest smart-phone seller in the fourth quarter of 2015 and the entire year 2015. Some interpret Samsung's decline in China as a result of Chinese makers keeping a firm grip on the Chinese smart-phone market. With the exception of Apple that took third place, the other top five companies are Chinese. Last year, Xiaomi sold 67.5 million phones, which is the largest sale, followed by Huawei, Vivo, and Oppo. Apple's sale growth rate was astoundingly high in early 2015 but declined to one fifth in the fourth quarter.

In the meantime, the rapid growth in Chinese smart-phones imports stop for the first time in the third quarter last year. In the fourth quarter, China's international market share started decreasing by 4 percent year on year from 123 million to 117.9 million.