The solid growth of Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi continues. Strategy Analytics has revealed that Xiaomi is now the top-selling smartphone in Europe, surpassing Apple in the second quarter 2021.With 12.7 million smartphones shipped in Q2, Xiaomi beat Samsung 67.1 percent to be Europe's top-selling phone vendor. Samsung's shipments decreased 7 percent to 12 million units in the same period, but the Korean company is still the largest phone seller in the world.Strategy Analytics researchers say that overall smartphone shipments increased in Europe in 2021 due to post-COVID recovery. Apple also showed decent growth. Due to high interest in the iPhone 12, the iPhone maker saw a 15.7 percent increase in sales compared to 2021.However, Xiaomi's value-focused approach seems to have increased its popularity in Europe. According to Boris Metodiev (associate director at Strategy Analytics), Xiaomi has enjoyed great success in Russia and Spain, Italy, and other countries. Customers are eager for the Redmi and Mi series of value smartphones.The demise of Huawei has helped Xiaomi's growth. It continues to evade the European market, having lost access to Android and Google services in 2019.We were impressed with the value of the Xiaomi Mi 11 flagship phone in one of our recent hardware reviews. In the markets it is sold in, it costs less than the $799 Galaxy S21, but has many similarities with the $1,199 S21 Util, as noted by Sam Byford. The biggest lesson I took away from the Mi 11 was that Samsung is fortunate Xiaomi doesn't sell phones here in the US.Perhaps, perhaps, buoyed in part by its success in Europe Xiaomi will now consider a US invasion.
