After losing steam for the most part of the present fiscal, the global smartphone shipments are likely to swell by 6.5% on-year to reach 1.38 billion units in 2021, a Strategy Analytics report said.

According to the report, as the economic situation improves with the weakening covid-19 pandemic and supply-side push of 5G devices smartphone shipments are set to improve. “2021 is going to be the year of Chinese smartphone vendors. In the Asia Pacific, Vivo, Xiaomi and Oppo will become top 3 players driven by aggressive marketing, expanding channel footprints and competitive pricing,” Linda Sui, senior director at Strategy Analytics said.

As per the report Chinese smartphone brand, Xiaomi is likely to emerge as the third-largest global smartphone vendor surpassing Huawei. Top smartphone analysts also believe that for 2021 Xiaomi will emerge as the third-largest global smartphone vendor surpassing Huawei. Xiaomi has been performing well in the India and Russia markets and has also been very aggressive in Central & Eastern Europe and Western Europe.

The agency also said Transsion will dominate Samsung to become the top smartphone maker in Africa and the Middle East market, while Xiaomi will overtake Apple to become the third-largest vendor.

“In the Western European markets, Xiaomi will solidify its grip on third place after Apple and Samsung,” the report noted.