China-based smartphone vendors accounted for a record 48 per cent of global shipments in Q2, as they continue to scale aggressively beyond the mainland, according to Counterpoint Research.

Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Huawei were the fastest growing Chinese brands outside of China during the quarter, with their mix of overseas smartphone shipments increasing from a year ago.

Huawei, with a 10.5 per cent global market share compared with 9 per cent in Q2 2016 (see chart below, click to enlarge), shipped 38.4 million units in Q2 2017, up 20 per cent from the same period of 2016 thanks to a strong performance in emerging markets.

Xiaomi’s Q2 shipments jumped 60 per cent year-on-year to 23.2 million units. Its market share increased to 6.3 per cent from 4.1 per cent in Q2 2016. Oppo’s shipments increased by 33 per cent to 30.5 million units, while Vivo’s rose 45 per cent to 24 million. Both saw their market shares rise by about 2 percentage points to 8.4 per cent and 6.6 per cent respectively.

The four Chinese vendors occupied the third through sixth market positions.

India, South Asia and Africa will be the key target market to drive additional scale and market share and diversify away from the domestic China market, which is increasingly saturated, Counterpoint Research noted.

The research company predicted incremental growth for the second half of 2017 thanks to the new iPhone and additional new products from other OEMs.