Gartner, Inc. said worldwide smartphone sales recorded the slowest growth rate since 2013 in the second quarter of 2015. Worldwide sales of smartphones to end users totaled 330 million units, an increase of 13.5 percent over the same period in 2014 (see Table 1).
“While demand for lower-cost 3G and 4G smartphones continued to drive growth in emerging markets, overall smartphone sales remained mixed region by region in the second quarter of 2015,” said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. Emerging Asia/Pacific (excluding China), Eastern Europe and Middle East and Africa were the fastest-growing regions, driven by good performance from Chinese and local vendors. By contrast, smartphone sales in China fell for the first time year over year, recording a 4 percent decline.
“China is the biggest country for smartphone sales, representing 30 percent of total sales of smartphones in the second quarter of 2015. Its poor performance negatively affected the performance of the mobile phone market in the second quarter,” said Mr. Gupta. “China has reached saturation — its phone market is essentially driven by replacement, with fewer first-time buyers. Beyond the lower-end phone segment, the appeal of premium smartphones will be key for vendors to attract upgrades and to maintain or grow their market share in China.”
Despite the launch of new S6 models, Samsung’s premium phones continued to be challenged by Apple’s large-screen iPhones. Samsung lost 4.3 percentage points in market share and declined 5.3 percent in unit sales in the second quarter of 2015. Huawei recorded the highest sales growth rate of 46.3 percent, thanks to strong overseas sales and 4G smartphone sales in China. iPhone sales increased 36 percent, which helped Apple gain 2.4 percentage points in market share. Apple recorded strong iPhone replacements in both emerging and mature markets — and particularly in China. Total iPhone sales in China grew 68 percent to 11.9 million units.
Table 1: Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q15
(Thousands of Units)
Source: Gartner (August 2015). The results for Lenovo include sales of mobile phones by Lenovo and Motorola both in 2Q15 and 2Q14.
Apple’s double-digit growth in the high-end segment continued to negatively impact its rivals’ premium phone sales and profit margins. Many vendors had to realign their portfolios to remain competitive in the midrange and low-end smartphone segments. This realignment resulted in price wars and discounting to clear up inventory for new devices planned for the second half of 2015.
In the smartphone operating system market (see Table 2), Android’s global share was affected by the weak performance of China in the second quarter of 2015 and the strong performance in China of Apple, which has taken share from Android for the last three quarters. “Android saw its lowest year-over-year growth of 11 percent with share reaching 82.2 percent in the second quarter of 2015,” said Mr. Gupta. Microsoft continued to struggle to generate wider demand for Windows Phone devices — even at the lower end. “In light of Microsoft’s recent cuts in its mobile hardware business, we’ll await signs of its long-term commitment in the smartphone market.”
“The low barrier to entry into the Android segment will continue to encourage an array of new players, adding to further disruptions coming from Chinese manufacturing and innovative Internet players with new business models that are not reliant on hardware margins,” said Mr. Gupta.
Table 2: Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2Q15
(Thousands of Units)
Source: Gartner (August 2015)
Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled 446 million units during the second quarter of 2015. The performance was flat (0.4 per cent) year over year (see Table 3). Vendors that are focused on the emerging markets, such as Huawei, ZTE, TCL Communication and Micromax, benefited from high demand in these markets, while global vendors such as Sony, Samsung and HTC struggled to achieve growth at the high end of the market.
Table 3: Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q15
(Thousands of Units)
Source: Gartner (August 2015). The results for Lenovo include sales of mobile phones by Lenovo and Motorola both in 2Q15 and 2Q14.
Additional information is available in the Gartner report “Market Share: Final PCs, Ultramobiles and Mobile Phones, All Countries, 2Q15 Update.”
Source: Gartner, Inc.
MacDailyNews Take: Again, market share is nice, profit share is better. Apple owns the quality customers. Fragmandroid can have the rest.
Apple’s iPhone owns 92% of smartphone industry’s profits – July 13, 2015
BTW, Great job there, DCW!
(Hey, Gartner, now that Beleaguered BlackBerry is smaller than your “Other” category, when do they get subsumed?)
SEE ALSO:
Samsung drops $10 billion in market value on poor demand for Galaxy S6 phones – July 31, 2015
Samsung will never overcome Apple’s advantage in mobile device profitability – July 30, 2015
Apple iPhone shipments show impressive growth as Samsung falls – July 30, 2015
Samsung offers downbeat outlook for year ahead of new Apple iPhones – July 30, 2015
Apple’s indomitable iPhone 6/Plus sales unfazed by Samsung’s anemic Galaxy S6/Edge – June 2, 2015
iPhone 6, killer: Beleaguered Samsung’s Galaxy S6 sales are a total disaster – May 22, 2015
Beleaguered Samsung reports 30 percent decline in operating profit – April 28, 2015
Samsung Galaxy S6 phones suffer weaker than expected sales in South Korea homeland – April 22, 2015
15 percent of Samsung Electronics execs quit amid profit slump – April 2, 2015
Significant Android to iPhone switching weakens market for Samsung Galaxy S6 – March 24, 2015
Apple iPhone takes smartphone market share from Android around the world – March 4, 2015
Poor man’s iPhone: Android on the decline – February 26, 2015
Study: iPhone users are smarter and richer than those who settle for Android phones – January 22, 2015
Why Android users can’t have the nicest things – January 5, 2015
iPhone users earn significantly more than those who settle for Android phones – October 8, 2014
Yet more proof that Android is for poor people – June 27, 2014
More proof that Android is for poor people – May 13, 2014
Android users poorer, shorter, unhealthier, less educated, far less charitable than Apple iPhone users – November 13, 2013
IDC data shows two thirds of Android’s 81% smartphone share are cheap junk phones – November 13, 2013
CIRP: Apple iPhone users are younger, richer, and better educated than those who settle for Samsung knockoff phones – August 19, 2013
MDN Take nailed it.
Apple sells fewer #, makes more $, and still has lots of room to grow %.
AAPL $85 soon.
After a split? Absolutely.
Just had a 7-1 split dumb ass! The market is going to split you from your investment money if you are still in AAPL. And you’re probably too stupid to learn to take profit.
And the only way they’re going to $85 is with another.
I avoided taking my profits at 10%, 50%, 200%, 400% and at 800% return, and I’ve done okay.
I think I’ll take my chances.
Oops. I forgot to factor the splits into those returns.
So funny!
Love those Other phone. Does anyone else believe statistics that are skewed by adding some crap category? I need some Other money. Then I could retire.
And if you’re stuck with Android, hopefully you can install Linux on it. Linux isn’t iOS or OS X, but it’s better than Android by a long shot. It’s pretty easy on name-brand devices, but it’s nearly impossible on no-name brands like E-Fun.
Ubuntu may have a consumer smartphone for sale worldwide in 2016 or 2017. 🖖😀⌚️
Technically, Linux is a kernel and not an operating systems. Though, there are various Linux distributions (Red Hat, Ubuntu, etc.) which are operating systems. For that matter, Android uses the Linux Kernel. There is much more to a mobile OS than the kernel itself.
I’m actually a little surprised that the iPhone 6 is still selling this well because the iPhone 7 will likely be released in a month or two.
Well, these are Q2 numbers (ended June 30th). No telling what’s happening right now ahead of new iPhones next month.
Nice 10% drop for Windows Phone, hey Redmond, how’s that iPhone funeral thing working out for you?
As an Apple shareholder, I see nothing funny about it. You compare Apple’s share price to Microsoft’s share price for the past six months and Apple is the company that’s being clobbered. Microsoft’s loss of mobile market share hasn’t touched the stock at all. Apple’s slight gains in mobile market share has sent the stock plummeting. If any funeral is going to be held it’s going to be held for Apple shareholders.
To give it perspective mobile devices is a very small part of Microsoft’s value vs what the iPhone is for Apple. Stands to reason any fluctuation in mobile market share will affect those companies relative to how important that category is to their entire value and consequently affects perception and stock price.
Given that we’re in a Post PC world now and that computing in general has largely shifted to mobile, this should be much more disturbing to Microsoft’s shareholders than they apparently realize.
I don’t know what planet Gupta lives on, but writing “China has reached saturation — ….” Is absolute bull*hit.
It depends on what percentage is financially well off. I imagine most of China is very poor and even a dumb phone might not be affordable.
The Gartner note mentioned that the Chinese view Apple as an aspirational brand and those that have an Android phone are waiting to purchase an iPhone.
Even less wealthy people in China will make a lot of other sacrifices to have an iPhone. I was in a business meeting with company managers and all of them had iPhones. No so surprising. But my driver had one too.
True.. There was an article a while back about a Chinese youth that sold one of his kidneys to raise the money to buy Apple devices.
It’s unbelievable that in 3 months 0.4BB phones are sold in the world. That’s one of every 12 people in the world.
The iOS #s are great and good to see Samsung marketshare dropping. But you also have to take note that every quarter 200M android phones are being sold.
That’s either good news for Apple since they can get people to upgrade to an iPhone after experiencing an entry level smartphone OR bad news in that the iOS platform may lose relevancy in the face of the low marketshare. Developers are going to be the key since more money can be made from iOS customers than Android.
Wall Street still assumes that any slowing growth in the smartphone market will mainly negatively affect Apple. I doubt there is anything that will change that perception. I believe this is a gut-level perception based on absolute market share driven by lower-priced products.
There’s nothing Apple can do about changing that perception. Actually there’s no reason for Apple to do anything about it. Apple will continue to thrive and only Apple shareholders will suffer as the share value craters. It’s frustrating to see as Apple’s revenue grows the market cap falls even faster. It’s unusual because there aren’t many consumer tech stocks that’s happening to.
True, but this just makes Apple’s stock buy back program all that much more effective.
Who was it that predicted in 2010 that Windows Phone would outsell iPhone by 2015?
I’m just happy that Apple is kicking that POS Slavish Copying good for nothing SK Samsh*t trash in the ASS!
Another way to look at these numbers is in terms of YOY growth. That picture makes it clear that the growth in the Smart Phone is merely a conversion of the Feature Phones into Smart Phones. In that context Apple is outgrowing the rest of the market by a significant margin.
skips
YOY Growth YOY Grow %
Worldwide Smart Phone Sales
Apple 12,740.2 32.42%
Huawei 8,168.1 20.79%
Xiaomi 3,524.1 8.97%
Lenovo -2,675.3 -6.81%
Samsung -4,056.7 -10.32%
Others 21,591.5 54.95%
39,291.9 100.00%
Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales
Apple 12,741.0 812.87%
Huawei 7,900.0 504.02%
Xiaomi 3,524.0 224.83%
ZTE 1,931.0 123.20%
TCL Communication 1,810.0 115.48%
Micromax 1,306.0 83.32%
LG Electonics -688.0 -43.89%
Lenovo -2,640.0 -168.43%
Samsung -8,679.0 -553.72%
Microsoft -16,124.0 -1,028.71%
Others 486.4 31.03%
1,567.4 100.00%
SCRAM! SCUM!