Chinese tech giant Lenovo, which has recently overtook Hewlett-Packard as the world's largest PC manufacturer, is slated to become the No.1 smartphone manufacture in the Chinese market in 2013, the US-based market research firm Gartner said on Tuesday as one of its top predictions for China.

"It is the only local smartphone player that can compete with global top brands in China, thanks to its household brand recognition, nationwide distribution, strong portfolio and reasonable pricing," Gartner said in a statement sent to the Global Times on Wednesday.

In the third quarter of the year, Lenovo's share in the world's largest smartphone market rose to 14.8 percent from only 1.7 percent during the same period last year, making its currently the second biggest smartphone brand in the Chinese market, only behind the South Korean handset maker Samsung, which has 16.7 percent market share, according to Gartner.

Apple, with its hot-selling iPhone lineup, held a 6.9 percent market share in China during the same period.

The latest crown to be offered to the Chinese company came on the heels of its arrival as the world's largest PC vendor in the third quarter of 2012.

Over the past quarter, Lenovo's global market share, in terms of shipments, for the first time surpassed that of Hewlett-Packard to gain the top spot for PCs, Gartner announced in a research report released in October.

But the research agency also noted Lenovo's rise in the domestic Chinese smartphone sector "will not be without challenges," given the fact that there has been intensified competition in the market.

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