Chinese smartphone makers have continued their climb toward traditional market leaders Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. with three separate reports showing that the gap between the top five phone makers continues to narrow.

The first set of figures comes from Canalys, which puts overall smartphone sales for the second quarter at more than 340 million. Samsung leads the pack with more than 79 million units, with Apple coming in at second place by shipping 41 million iPhones. Not far behind sits Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., which is claimed to have shipped 38 million units, with Oppo Electronics Corp. and Xiaomi Inc. coming in at fourth and fifth, respectively.

Strategy Analytics provides the second set of estimated smartphone sales figures. It puts overall sales for the quarter at 360.4 million but with similar leader numbers: Samsung with 79.5 million smartphones, Apple with 41 million for an 11 percent market share.

“Apple’s iPhone has gone out of fashion in China and this is placing a cap on its worldwide performance,” the company noted in a press release. Reflecting figures from Canalys, Strategy Analytics puts unit sales from Huawei at 38.4 million, slightly less than Apple but also with an 11 percent share. Oppo came in at 29.5 million while Xiaomi, which had previously seen its sales fall as other Chinese makers surged in popularity, was the comeback kid for the quarter, selling 23.2 million units, up from 14.7 million the year before.

The last set of figures come from International Data Corp., which said that “Samsung and Apple both held shares relatively constant from the second quarter a year ago, while the other three vendors rounding out the top 5 – Huawei, OPPO and Xiaomi – all grew shares.” IDC put total numbers at 341.6 million smartphones for the quarter, with Samsung selling 79.8 million units for a 23.3 percent market share, Apple with 41 million units for a 12 percent share and Huawei shipping 38.5 million units for an 11.3 percent market share. Oppo and Xiaomi sold 27.8 and 21.2 million, respectively, for market shares of 8.1 percent and 6.2 percent.

No matter which figures are used, the trend is clear: Although Samsung, in particular, maintains its position as the largest smartphone maker, the Chinese upstarts led by Huawei continue to grow and are now nipping at Apple’s heels. Apple will debut a new iPhone later this year that will see it boost units sold. But that number needs to be significant given the continued growth coming from its Chinese rivals.

Photo: mindfrieze/Flickr