The market for high-end smartphones in the U.S. and Europe is becoming saturated. As U.S. mobile providers are beginning to change their subscription models to compete for every last subscriber, smartphone manufacturers are now looking to emerging markets for growth.

DigiTimes is reporting that smartphone makers are now increasing their orders for mid-range smartphone components. The report cites unnamed “sources at Taiwan’s handset supply chains” as saying that manufacturers (in particular HTC and Samsung) are now focusing on their mid-range product line-up to maintain and increase global market share.

These predictions are in-line with recent shipment numbers showing that Samsung is leading global shipments by a wide margin. Though around 23 million of the Korean company’s 71 million smartphones shipped during the second quarter of 2013 were the high-end Galaxy S4, much of the rest were mid-range devices sold in emerging markets such as China.

The DigiTimes report also predicts that Chinese smartphone manufacturers such as Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, and HTC will soon become strong competitors for global smartphone market share. HTC’s latest flagship Android smartphone, the HTC One, did not turn the company’s fortunes around. The company has predicted, however, that its mid-range product launches coming in the third quarter of this year will raise its revenue substantially.

(via DigiTimes)