Lenovo Third Largest Smartphone Provider, Xiaomi Fourth

The smartphone industry has three prominent Chinese manufacturers, Lenovo, Huawei and Xiaomi. This year, Xiaomi has made the most progress in the industry, going from a measly two percent to six percent market share, a 221 percent growth year-on-year. The four percent increase put Xiaomi at third in the leaderboard, but not for long. Just one day after, Lenovo’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility allowed the Chinese rival to surpass Xiaomi, taking over as the third place smartphone maker.

Lenovo previously sold 16 million units, while Xiaomi sold 18 million. Motorola’s numbers were not released, but analysts put numbers at somewhere between four and six million, enough to give Lenovo a strong lead against Xiaomi. This still leaves a rather large gap of 10 million units between Lenovo and second place Apple. Xiaomi now sits fourth, LG enter at fifth and Huawei sit at sixth. Sony and HTC, the two more notable smartphone makers in the West, both missed the top five list.

The gap between first and second place in even larger, with Samsung taking a 30 million advantage in Q3 2014. Interestingly, Samsung is the only smartphone manufacturer in the top five to decrease in overall sales, with Chinese and Indian smartphone makers challenging the South Korean electronics giant.

Even with the slight slip from Xiaomi, they still beat all other smartphone manufacturers in yearly comparison. The Chinese firm has been investing in other regions as well, and rumor says Xiaomi is looking at more funding with a $40 billion valuation, higher than Sony or Lenovo.