Smartphone shipments grew six percent year over year despite notable troubles at Samsung and a sales slump at Apple, Strategy Analytics said in a new report.
In the third quarter, Strategy Analytics said global smartphone shipments hit 375.4 million units, up from 354.2 million units the year prior. The report said it was the industry’s fastest growth rate in the past year following a bottoming out in the first half of 2016.
The gains came despite Samsung’s widely publicized struggles with its Galaxy Note 7 launch and Apple’s recently reported third quarter sales slump, and were mainly attributed to growth at up and coming Chinese brands like OPPO and Vivo.
Strategy Analytics said Samsung shipped 75.3 million smartphones in the period, down 10 percent from 83.8 million the year before. Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics said the figure was Samsung’s slowest growth rate in nearly two years.
“(Samsung’s) global smartphone market share has dipped from 24 percent to 20 percent in the past year,” Mawston said. “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 also had difficulties in the third quarter, with shipments dropping five percent year over year to just 45.5 million.
“Apple’s global smartphone market share has softened from 14 percent to 12 percent in the past year,” Mawston said. “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.”
Samsung and Apple’s struggles, however, left room for other up and coming brands – like Huawei, OPPO and Vivo – to make gains.
Huawei boosted its shipments from 26.7 million a year ago to 33.6 million in the third quarter, while Vivo nearly doubled its shipments year over year from 9.8 million in the third quarter 2015 to 18.3 million this year. The largest bump in shipments, though, came at OPPO, which grew 140 percent year over year from 9 million shipments in the third quarter 2015 to 21.6 million in the most recent quarter.
By market share, Samsung and Apple remain in first and second place with 20.1 percent and 12.1 percent, respectively. Huawei also held on in third place with nine percent market share, but has OPPO and Vivo hot on its heels with 5.8 percent and 4.9 percent of the market share, respectively.