Lei Jun, founder of Xiaomi. Bloomberg

While not yet reigning supreme, the global smartphone market, including that in Indonesia, is witnessing the rise of Chinese products.

Sales performance figures for the second quarter of the year tell a tale of woe for South Korean technology giant, Samsung.

In the second quarter of this year, for the first time in three years, the company reported a decline in its net profit, a 20-percent fall compared to the same period last year. Despite the company reporting the fault lay in low market demand, the fact is that other companies reported an increase in sales in the same quarter.

Samsung continues to be the global leader in the cellular phone market. But with other companies, including another South Korean giant, LG, aggressively trying to woo consumers with their latest products, the market should see an interesting battle for dominance through the end of the year.

Samsung, LG, Sony and Motorola, with their Android-powered products, as well as Apple'€™s iPhone, may need to rewrite their marketing strategy soon as the market is witnessing the rise of premium products from China.

With Indonesia topping market sales for smartphones in the first half of the year, according to Singapore-based research agency GfK, producers are pumping their products into the local market, while others are trying hard to penetrate this lucrative market.

Last year, Huawei surprised the high technology market by becoming the third biggest smartphone producer in the world after Samsung and Apple. In Indonesia, the company often works with local operators to bundle programs and has also recently signed an agreement with one of Indonesia'€™s largest online shopping sites, lazada.co.id, to market its products.

Andy M. Rendy, Huawei Indonesia marketing manager, said the exclusive sales via e-commerce website was a way to help customers buy their products and not due to sluggish offline sales. '€œUp until now, sales of the [Huawei] Ascend have been quite good, reaching 100 units per day in each city,'€ he said during the recent launch of Huawei'€™s high-end smartphone in Jakarta, as quoted by bisnis.com.

The flagship Ascend P7 sports a 1.8 GHz quad-core processor and 2 GB of RAM and, with 4G LTE connectivity, should be a strong contender to Samsung '€˜s latest Galaxy series. Meanwhile, Huawei'€™s 6.1-inch Ascend Mate 2 phablet, which also boasts a strong processor, large RAM capacity and 4G connectivity, but without the stylus, is set to challenge the Samsung Note series.

The world'€™s fourth largest smartphone producer also hails from China. Lenovo, whose computer products are a global leader, reported that it now sells more cellular phones than its traditional products'€”computers.

Lenovo is one of the most aggressive Chinese premium brands in the country with advertisements seen across the board. Its flagship product, the Vibe series, is popular in the country thanks to its strong advertisement campaign. The company is currently preparing the release date of its latest high-end product, the Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro K920, which promises a 2K display'€”said to be the best current smartphone display in the world, 2 GB RAM and a 2.4 GHz quad core Krait 400 processor. The Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro K920 is also said to be the company'€™s last major release for the year.

In Indonesia, the new Chinese brand Oppo caused quite a stir when it was first introduced last year. Using Hollywood A-listers, such as Leonardo diCaprio, as the brand'€™s ambassadors when it was first introduced, Oppo offered specifications that wowed the market.

Oppo has enjoyed good sales through major electronic stores in the archipelago. Abdan Rasihin of Erafone Metropolitan Mall said that the Oppo R1 was among the store'€™s best sellers in smartphones.

The Oppo R1 is a mid-range smart phone offering strong performance in the camera department. Using the Sony BSI CMOS imx179 camera sensor, the phone camera promises more detailed night shots, while the phone'€™s smart gesture technology is said to help make operations easier.

Kuntarini Rahsilawati, a Jakarta-based accountant, swore by her Oppo Muse. She has had two so far, citing the phone'€™s full features and good sound quality at a low price as the deciding factors for choosing the brand.

Another China-born smartphone producer that has sent a shockwave throughout the industry is Xiaomi. Forbes reported that Xiaomi had captured 5 percent of the global market, shipping 15.1 million smartphones in the last three months. This puts Xiaomi as the fifth largest smartphone producer globally, a strong performance indeed as the company is only four years old.

The company reported that today it was already in profit, another claim that has wowed pundits everywhere. Hugo Barra, VP for Xiaomi Global, who was previously VP for Google'€™s Android division, said, as quoted by thenextweb.com, said the company had since day one opted for a direct marketing strategy using online stores to sell its products, including the Xiaomi-brand smartphone accessories. This conveniently helps the company cut down on marketing and advertisement costs.

The Xiaomi Mi3 is a high-end smartphone with a Snapdragon 800 chipset and 2.3 GHz quad core Kraut 400 processor'€”all for a price tag that should not exceed Rp 4 million (US$342.66) when Xiaomi products hit the Indonesian shores. At ICS 2014, Xiaomi tested the market'€™s response by opening a booth to display some of its products. Indonesia should be able to see Xiaomi products at the end of August, as the Communications and Information Ministry has finally given a green light for the company to sell its products.

The man behind Xiaomi'€™s meteoric rise is Lei Jun, who, as reported by Forbes, enjoyed a sharp jump in fortune and is now China'€™s 19th wealthiest person with a net fortune of $4.2 billion. Asked how Xiaomi could sell its products for less than other premium products, Lei said, '€œWe essentially price our phones at bill-of-materials cost.'€