According to the latest figures from IDC, Smartphone vendors shipped a total of 334.9 million smartphones worldwide last quarter. This figure is up just 0.2 percent from the 334.3 million units in Q1 2015. This is the smallest year-over-year growth on record.
Despite what you read in the Tame Apple Press, Samsung is still the king of smartphones and outsells Apple and Huawei combined. However even it suffered a bit. Samsung’s market share actually decreased by 0.1 percentage points from 24.6 percent to 24.5 percent. It shipped only 81.9 million. Still a quarter of the market is still better than a poke in the eye with a short stick.
IDC estimates that the new Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge “sold vigorously” in March, helped by numerous carrier promotions that pushed volume. In emerging markets, Samsung performed well with its more affordable J Series.
Apple decided that it was not going to sell as many phones this year to give its rivals a chance. It did this by releasing phones that were pretty much the same as last year’s phones but still more expensive than their rivals. It even innovated by releasing a phone which had a two year design but a slightly better chip. This meant Apple fell by 3.0 points to 15.3 percent.
Huawei improved grabbed 3.0 more points and taking 8.2 percent of the market. Oppo jumped 3.3 points to 5.5 percent and Vivo gained 2.4 points to 4.3 percent. This means that Chinese brands Oppo and Vivo have pushed out previous fourth and fifth place players Lenovo and Xiaomi.
Anthony Scarsella, IDC research manager said that outside of China, many of these brands are virtually unknown and the ability of these rapidly growing Chinese vendors to gain entry into mature markets such as the United States and Western Europe will be essential if they have aspirations of catching Apple or Samsung at the top.
“While Huawei is furthest along in terms of international recognition, selling equally impressive volumes outside of China remains a challenge for many of these brands, whether it is Xiaomi, Lenovo, OPPO, or vivo. Their ability to drive local growth no longer applies when it comes to international expansion, where premium branding quickly turns to price competition,” he said.
