China's Oppo overtakes S.Korea's Samsung as top smartphone in Southeast Asia

China's Oppo edged South Korea's Samsung to become the top vendor in the Southeast Asian smartphone market in the second quarter with a 20.3 percent market share.

Samsung Electronics Co. dropped to the second spot with a market share of 19.5 percent in the April-June period, according to industry tracker Counterpoint Research.

Oppo was one of the Chinese brands that took four of the top five spots.

The others were Vivo, which came in third with 17.9 percent, followed by Xiaomi with 14 percent, and Realme taking the fifth spot with 12.8 percent.

Samsung first lost its top vendor spot in Southeast Asia to Oppo in the fourth quarter of 2019 but recaptured it in the first quarter of this year with an 18.9 percent market share, which was 0.2 percent higher than Oppo.

According to Counterpoint Research, the pandemic prompted Southeast Asian consumers to settle for budget smartphones, which were the ones manufactured by China.

Smartphone shipments in Southeast Asia plummeted 22 percent on-year to 24 million units in the second quarter.