Smartphone third quarter sales up year-on-year

Third quarter smartphone sales totalled 383 million – a 3% increase over the same period in 2016, according to Gartner.

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Sales in 1,000s of units were:

  • Samsung – 85,605.3
  • Apple – 45,441.9
  • Huawei – 36,501.8
  • OPPO – 29,449.2
  • Xiaomi – 26,853.2
  • Others – 159,552.1.

 

All of the top five smartphone vendors achieved double-digit growth apart from Apple, which achieved a 5.7% increase.

“Despite market weakness in China, sales of smartphones rose, ” says Gartner’s personal technologies analyst Anshul Gupta.”Emerging Asia/Pacific (15% increase) and North America (11.2% increase) drove the smartphone growth in the quarter.”

“In emerging Asia Pacific, both Samsung and Huawei saw healthy demand as along with Xiaomi and Vivo, which were able to grow their footprint outside their home markets,” adds Gupta. “In North America, Samsung was the driving force in the quarter due to its new flagship products.”

Samsung’s smartphone sales recorded a double-digit increase (19.3 %) in the third quarter of 2017. “Renewed pushes of the newly designed Galaxy S8, S8+ and Note 8 smartphones have brought back growing demand for Samsung smartphones, which helped it compete against Chinese manufacturers and deliver a solid performance in the quarter,” says Gupta. “”The last time Samsung achieved a double-digit growth was in the fourth quarter of 2015.”

Apple’s sales grew 5.7 % year-on-year. Apple returned to growth in China and also saw strong sales in many of the emerging markets, including India. This is due to the continued sales of legacy iPhones, including the iPhone 5S, which retails at around $240 in most markets.

Xiaomi achieved the strongest growth, exhibiting an 80% increase in Q3. Xiaomi’s growth came more from international markets than from China, where it faces strong competition from Huawei, Oppo and Vivo. India continues to be the biggest and highest-growth market for Xiaomi outside China, but growing sales from Latin America and Russia are also boosting its sales, according to Gartner’s figures.

Greater China exhibited a decline of 11% in Q3 due to consolidation around local and lesser-known brands. Buyers are preferring known and high-priced smartphones, which is cannibalising demand of budget smartphones from local brands, says Gartner. In Western Europe and North America, demand for premium smartphones from top brands led to smartphone sales growth in the third quarter.


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