According to a research that was conducted by American research-firm; Gartner Inc., on Tuesday revealed that the Chinese-based smartphone makers; Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd is narrowing the gap with its two world’s biggest competitors: US-based Apple Inc. and the South-Korean based; Samsung Electronics in global smartphone sales made in the first-quarter.
The company’s market share increased to 9 percent during the first quarter from 8.3 percent in the year-earlier period.
Despite its P9 and P9 Plus phablets being available for more than a year now, both smartphones continued to sell well, positioning Huawei as a dominant brand in the consumer market.
“Huawei has now steadily held the third spot in the worldwide ranking of smartphone vendors. However, pressure is mounting as its counterparts in China are catching up.” Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner, said in a statement.
Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 1Q17 (Thousands of Units)
|
Vendor |
1Q17 Units |
1Q17 Market Share (%) |
1Q16 |
1Q16 Market Share (%) |
|
Samsung |
78,671.4 |
20.7 |
81,186.9 |
23.3 |
|
Apple |
51,992.5 |
13.7 |
51,629.5 |
14.8 |
|
Huawei |
34,181.2 |
9.0 |
28,861.0 |
8.3 |
|
Oppo |
30,922.3 |
8.1 |
15,891.5 |
4.6 |
|
Vivo |
25,842.2 |
6.8 |
14,001.0 |
4.0 |
|
Others |
158,367.7 |
41.7 |
156,654.2 |
45.0 |
|
Total |
379,977.3 |
100.0 |
348,224.2 |
100.0 |
Source: Gartner (May 2017)
Samsung
Samsung kept its top spot but saw its market share shrink to 20.7 percent from 23.3 percent as it continued to feel the impact of its costly Galaxy Note 7 recall last year after several devices spontaneously caught fire.
“Although Samsung announced that pre-orders for the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 plus are up 30 percent year on year, the absence of an alternative to Galaxy Note 7 and the fierce competition in the basic smartphone segment are leading Samsung to continuously lose market share,” Gartner’s Gupta said.
Apple
Apple on the other hand, saw it’s market share dropped to 13.7 percent from 14.8 percent. The first quarter of the year is Apple’s weakest when sales dip after the holiday-heavy fourth quarter. Customers are also holding back on buying iPhones in anticipation of new models that will be launched later in the year.[related-posts]
Notably, in the press statement that was revealed by the research firm, Global sales of smartphones to end users totaled to 380 million units in the first quarter of 2017, a 9.1 percent increase over the first quarter of 2016.
They firm continued to mention that mobile phone buyers are spending more to get a better phone, resulting in the rise in average selling prices of types of phone.
source: Reuters and Gartner Newsroom
