Xiaomi overtook Samsung at the summit of Europe’s smartphone shipments table in Q2, Strategy Analytics found, scooping more than a 25 per cent market share for the period.

The analyst company noted it was the first time the smartphone brand had topped its quarterly rankings in the region. Xiaomi shipped 12.7 million units, up 67 per cent year-on-year, with reportedly especially strong sales in Italy, Spain, Ukraine and Russia.

Samsung was second in Strategy Analytics rankings, with 12 million units down 7 per cent year-on-year, followed by Apple on 9.6 million, Oppo (2.8 million) and Realme (1.9 million).

Across the continent shipments were up 14 per cent year-on-year to 50 million. However, as with the many recent shipment reports, numbers are being compared with a quarter of 2020 severely hit by Covid-19 (coronavirus) restrictions.

Strategy Analytics associate director Boris Metodiev stated: “The European markets for smartphones had a strong quarter driven by Covid recovery, following the crash in 2020. The highlight of the quarter is Xiaomi emerging as the number one vendor in shipment terms for the first time.”

Discussing Samsung’s performance, Strategy Analytics executive director Neil Mawston said the vendor was “performing well with new 5G models from the Galaxy A series, but it faces increasing competition from Apple in the high-end and the Chinese vendors in the low-end, and it failed to take advantage of Huawei’s demise in Europe”.