Despite massive technical success and analysts' praising the device, HTC remains far behind Apple and Samsung in the overall smartphone market. For the first time ever, Xiaomi graced the top 20 smartphones purchased globally in the first quarter of 2014, joining LG and Sony as the global leaders in handheld devices.
New statistics published this month show that Apple and Samsung remain dominant in the sector and most observers do not believe this will change in the near future as both companies plan on launching updated versions of their devices or, in Apple's case, a new iPhone 6 this fall.
ABI Research, a leader in global tech studies, said that even though HTC fell off the top 20 for the first quarter this year, it expects Huawei to continue to make positive gains in the smartphone sector as well as HTC as its flagship HTC One M8 was well-received by analysts and smartphone experts.
The numbers do not take into account the HTC One as it was launched only a couple months ago and has yet to see its success, which analysts say could help push it into the third position globally.
But Samsung continues to dominate. "Samsung's dominance is driven by its market-leading 27 percent market share and despite Apple's lower market share its small, clearly tiered portfolio creates significant volume for just a few SKUs," said Nick Spencer, ABI Research senior practice director, in a statement.
The main reason for Apple and Samsung's success is their deep marketing pockets, which allows each company to push out media content and drive interest in their smartphones at a pace and level other companies are currently unable to do so at the present moment.
"The presence of the Samsung Galaxy S3 i9300 16 GB and iPhone 4s 8 GB in the top five is testament to the enduring appeal of these models and the vendors strong brand, enabling a long and profitable life cycle that other vendors can only dream of," finished Spencer.
Also on the prowl will be the new Amazon Fire 3D, which has garnered much attention among the smartphone industry and already has Apple and Samsung worried that its success could hit into their current market share, but there won't be concrete statistics for a number of months on the newer additions to the smartphone world.
