The smartphone market gets new players every now and then and the competition keeps growing. Old players struggle to maintain their foothold in a game where the ultimate goal is winning the heart of consumers. For years, Samsung has maintained its position as the world’s largest smartphone vendor but that position is under threat as reports keep coming in that the company is losing its market share to rivals.
As a matter of fact, Samsung faced quite a great deal of competition in markets like China where local players seem to now dominate. 2015 saw the rise of Huawei to the 3rd position globally and companies like Xiaomi too are climbing up the ladder.
The demand for smartphones is met adequately with different devices in the market but the competitive side of the mobile market is insane as explained by a Xiaomi top executive. According to Times of India, Hugo Barra, global VP for the company said:
The smartphone market is getting insanely competitive. But we know it too well. These are the same players we have seen in China. As far as Xiaomi is concerned, our strategy in any market is to focus on building incredible products.
This is true. The company’s position is being threatened already in China by Huawei and this is Xiaomi’s largest market. Chinese companies like Gionee, Lenovo, Oppo and others too are coming up strong.
Xiaomi has tried expanding to markets like Africa but taking Nigeria as a case study, the company has to compete with the likes of Tecno, Infinix and Innjoo who already dominate the market. Xiaomi has also been slow in expanding to markets like the US and it entered India in just 2014. Analysts also claim the company has been slow in introducing new products at a time when competitors keep introducing new devices to the market.
As far as this “insane competition” goes, it’s all for the comsumer’s benefit. This will drive innovation. It’s also evident that the price of smartphones keeps going down.