According to Strategic Analytics, total smartphone sales were not impressive in the third quarter. They only rose 10% to 354 million. Linda Sui, director at Strategy Analytics, said:
Global smartphone shipments grew just 10 percent annually from 323.4 million units in Q3 2014 to 354.2 million in Q3 2015. This quarter was the smartphone industry’s slowest growth rate for six years, since the depths of the global economic recession back in 2009. Smartphone growth is slowing due to increasing penetration maturity in major markets of the US, Europe and China.
China suddenly has become a “mature” market, which is bad for smartphone companies, which believed that it was the most likely place for growth.
While Samsung’s sales finally began to grow, the improvement was dismal compared to Apple’s. Samsung’s share fell from 24.5% in the third quarter of last year to 23.7% in the most recent quarter. Samsung sold a total of 83.8 million in the third quarter of 2015. Apple continues to close the gap with Samsung. Its market share rose to 13.6% from 12.2% last year. The growth is attributed to the popularity of the iPhone 6 family. Apple’s recent earnings data show iPhone sales for its most recent quarter of 48.0 million, up from 39.3 million in the same period a year ago. The quarter ended on September 26.
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The third place smartphone company based on sales continues to grow much faster than the market. Huawei’s market share reached 7.5% in the most recent quarter, up from 5.1% last year. It sold 26.7 million smartphones. The largest loser in the quarter was fourth place Lenovo-Motorola. Its market share dropped to 5.3% from 7.6% in the year-ago quarter. It sold 18.8 million in the third quarter.
Sui also said:
Lenovo-Motorola returned to fourth position with 5 percent global smartphone marketshare in Q3 2015, but its shipment growth rate declined minus 23 percent annually. Xiaomi tumbled to fifth place with 5 percent share and its shipment growth rate declined minus 1 percent annually. Both Lenovo-Motorola and Xiaomi are struggling to make headway in the fast-growing 4G smartphone market and they are being punished by a bullish Huawei and a resurgent Samsung.
The change in fortune from a year ago is rapid. In Apple’s case, it shows what the introduction of a new product can do.
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