Smartphone sales rose in emerging market regions worldwide in 2Q 2016, helping increase Android market share and lifting global sales 4.3 percent as compared to 2Q 2015, according to Gartner’s latest market data. A total of 344 million smartphones were shipped worldwide in 2Q.
2Q smartphone sales declined year over year in all mature markets except for Japan, dropping 4.9 percent collectively. More than enough to offset the decline, sales rose in all emerging market regions except for Latin America to wind up 9.9 percent higher than in 2Q’15.
More broadly, global sales of mobile phones fell 0.5 percent YoY. Sales of feature phones dropped 14 percent YoY, while only five of the top 10 mobile phone OEMs posted higher shipment numbers in 2Q, Gartner highlights in a news release.
Top 5 OEMs Gain Market Share
Consumers are postponing new mobile phone purchases until later this year when new models are introduced, according to Gartner Research Director Anshul Gupta.
“The top five smartphone manufacturers together continued to gain market share in the second quarter of 2016 — up from 51.5 percent to 54 percent year on year, led by Oppo, Samsung and Huawei,” Gupta added.
Samsung gained 0.5 points of global smartphone market share in 2Q’16, shipping 76.743 million units to end the quarter with a 22.3 percent share of the market. Samsung’s Galaxy A and Galaxy J series smartphones are competing well against Chinese OEMs’ offerings and its new smartphone line-up also helped Samsung regain market share in emerging market regions, Gartner found.
Second-ranked Apple’s market share dropped 1.7 points to 12.9 percent as iPhone sales totaled 44.395 million worldwide in 2Q. That’s down 7.7 percent from the year-ago level.
Apple smartphone sales dropped in the OEM’s two largest market regions, North America and Western Europe, and posted a record 26 percent YoY decline in Greater China and mature Asia-Pacific region countries, Gartner notes. They surged higher in Eurasia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe, rising more than 95 percent YoY, however.
Chinese OEMs accounted for four of the five top 10 mobile phone OEMs whose sales rose YoY in 2Q. That included third-ranked Huawei, which sold 30.671 million smartphones in 2Q, gaining 0.9 market share points to end the quarter with an 8.9 percent share of the global smartphone market.
Oppo and Xiaomi rounded out the top 5 smartphone OEMs. Oppo sold 18.49 million smartphones in 2Q to gain 3 points of market share, ending 2Q with a 5.4 percent share of the global market. Xiaomi’s market share slid 0.2 points, with the OEM winding up the quarter with a 4.5 percent market share, according to Gartner.
Rapid Android Evolution
Android market share rebounded in 2Q’16 as compared to the same period a year ago, ending the quarter with an 86 percent share of the global smartphone market. Demand from premium as well as lower to mid-range smartphones in emerging market countries continued to fuel growth.
Samsung introduced new high-end Android-based smartphones in 2Q, while Chinese OEMs, such as Oppo and Xiaomi, are offering premium Android smartphone lines in a lower price range, all contributing to higher Android market share.
“Google is evolving the Android platform fast, which allows Android players to remain at the cutting edge of smartphone technology,” commented Roberta Cozza, a Gartner research director. “Facing a highly commoditized smartphone market, Google’s focus is to further expand and diversify the Android platform with additional functionalities, like virtual reality, enabling more-intelligent experiences and reach into wearables, connected home devices, in-car entertainment and TV.”
