Samsung’s Vietnam supply issues cause ~5% market share loss in LATAM

Xiaomi has gained a lot of ground at Samsung’s cost lately after dethroning the Korean tech giant in a couple of markets and becoming the world’s biggest smartphone brand in the process. But the year is not over yet, and we have now learned that Xiaomi is also gaining a lot more ground in LATAM countries (Latin America), while Samsung is doing the exact opposite.

Although Samsung continues leading the smartphone market in LATAM ahead of Motorola, Xiaomi, ZTE, and Apple, its market performance in Q2 2021 wasn’t that great. Over the course of one year, Samsung’s market share dropped from 42.5% to 37.3% in Q2 2021. The lost market share was captured mainly by Xiaomi and ZTE. The latter had an 11.4% share in Q2 2021, up from 4.9%, while ZTE managed to increase its share from 3.2% to 4.4%.

Samsung’s losing focus as the LATAM smartphone market recovers

Samsung lost a little over 5% market share in one year, but the bigger issue is that the company lost all this ground as the LATAM smartphone market was recovering.

Smartphone shipments in LATAM declined 6.5% in Q2 compared to the previous quarter. However, they surged a whopping 41.8% year-on-year, according to Counterpoint Research.

Despite this favorable climate, Samsung lost ground to Xiaomi and ZTE. The reason is that the company was affected the most by its supply shortages caused by delays at its Vietnam factory, claims the market watcher.

The same production issues in Vietnam have also caused the Galaxy Tab S7 FE to be released gradually in fewer markets than initially expected.