Chinese smartphone makers dial up innovation, growth

BEIJING -- In China's booming smartphone market, which overtook the United States as the world's largest last year, a host of domestic firms have innovation on the brain, especially as the industry is on pace for even greater growth.

Within minutes of going on sale online, Xiaomi Technology sold 2.5 million units of its M12 smartphone, which has specifications that, some say, exceed that of the iPhone and retails for less than half the price on the Chinese mainland.

Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi Technology Co, forecast that the company's sales would double this year. In 2012, the turnover of the company founded less than three years ago amounted to 12 billion yuan ($1.93 billion).

Many industry insiders, like Lei, have faith in China's mobile phone market. Big names like Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo have elbowed their way in, hoping to grab a piece of the market.

Statistics from IDC, an IT company and market researcher, show that China's smartphone market could grow by as much as 44 percent this year, with total smartphone shipments approaching 300 million units.

A total of 67.21 million smartphones were sold in China in the fourth quarter of 2012, up 236.4 percent year on year, with domestic brands contributing to 77.9 percent of total sales, according to statistics from the China Academy of Telecommunication Research.

"Domestic makers made great strides in the smartphone market for their abundant manufacturing experience and the cheap prices favored by those using a smartphone for the first time," the report said.

Lenovo, a leading PC firm, emerged as the second-biggest smartphone seller, with 13.2 percent of China's market share last year, following the Republic of Korea's Samsung Electronics, which took a 17.7 percent.

Apple came in third, with 11 percent, and domestic companies Huawei Technologies Co and Coolpad rounded out the top five, with 9.9 and 9.7 percent of the market share, respectively.