Global Smartphone Shipments Surge to 375 Million in Q3

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 1:51AM EST · Published Oct 27, 9:00AM EDT

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Global Smartphone Shipments Surge to 375 Million in Q3 — © Thinkstock

The flagging global smartphone industry got a bump in the third quarter as global shipments jumped 6% to 375 million. Samsung shipments dropped 10% during the same period, according to Strategy Analytics.

Samsung’s shipments fell from 83.8 million in the quarter a year ago to 75.3 million. Apple shipments also dropped, from 48.0 million to 45.5 million. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) recently posted its first annual revenue decline since 2011.

These two global smartphone leaders have problems they cannot overcome soon.

Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics, commented:

Samsung shipped 75.3 million smartphones worldwide in Q3 2016, falling 10 percent annually from 83.8 million units in Q3 2015. This was Samsung’s slowest growth rate for almost two years. Its global smartphone marketshare has dipped from 24 percent to 20 percent in the past year. Samsung’s recent Galaxy Note 7 recall was handled badly, which dented its brand image and left a large product gap in its premium smartphone lineup. Samsung will now be looking to its next flagship launch, such as the rumored Galaxy S8 model, to recover momentum in 2017. Apple fell 5 percent annually and shipped a lackluster 45.5 million smartphones worldwide in Q3 2016. Apple’s global smartphone marketshare has softened from 14 percent to 12 percent in the past year. Apple has been given a slight boost by Samsung’s Note 7 missteps, but it continues to face iPhone fatigue among many consumers in major regions such as China and Europe.

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The three primary Chinese manufacturers — Huawei, OPPO and Vivo — posted impressive gains. Shipments by Huawei rose from 26.7 million to 33.6 million, putting it third in global sales for the third quarter. OPPO rose from 9.0 million to 21.6 million. Vivo sales rose from 9.8 million to 18.3 million.

Global Smartphone Vendor Shipments and Marketshare in Q3 2016 [1]

Global Smartphone Vendor Shipments (Millions of Units)	Q3 ’15	Q3 ’16
Samsung	83.8	75.3
Apple	48.0	45.5
Huawei	26.7	33.6
OPPO	9.0	21.6
Vivo	9.8	18.3
Others	176.9	181.1
Total	354.2	375.4

Global Smartphone Vendor Marketshare (%)	Q3 ’15	Q3 ’16
Samsung	23.7%	20.1%
Apple	13.6%	12.1%
Huawei	7.5%	9.0%
OPPO	2.5%	5.8%
Vivo	2.8%	4.9%
Others	49.9%	48.2%
Total	100.0%	100.0%

Total Growth: Year-over-Year (%)	9.5%	6.0%

Source: Strategy Analytics

1. Numbers are rounded.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.