As smartphone ownership nears saturation, the market as a whole performed poorly in the second quarter of 2015, with global shipments up just 2% on the same period past year.
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The global smartphone industry posted its slowest growth rate in six years in the second quarter. It highlights what a massive success the iPhone 6 has been, and particularly in China, where management say it must do well to continue increased sales and earnings.
China-based Huawei grabbed third place with 9% market share, up from 6.8% in Q2 2014. Chinese handset manufacturer Huawei also saw its share rise to 7 percent – up from 4.8 percent the prior year – accounting for 30.6 million mobile phones shipped in the quarter. Samsung maintained the number one slot, but saw its Q2’15 unit sales fell year-over-year to 89 million from 95.3 million on disappointing Galaxy S6 sales. Its share slid from 22.3% to 20.5%.
A new statistical report published by StrategyAnalytics today noted that global mobile phone shipments Global mobile phone shipments grew a lackluster 2 percent annually from 428.0 million units in Q2 2014 to 434.6 million in Q2 2015.
“Huawei is expanding rapidly across Asia, Europe and North America, putting competitive pressure on key rivals such as Samsung, Xiaomi, Lenovo, LG, Sony (NYSE:SNE) and Alcatel”, Strategy Analytics analyst Woody Oh said in a statement. For the first time ever, Huawei became the third largest mobile phone vendor, overtaking a falling Microsoft who finds itself in limbo until Windows 10 Mobile arrives later this year.
Despite lower-priced Lumias historically performing well in European countries like Spain and Italy, Microsoft now appears more interested in targeting the Apple- and Samsung-dominated premium market.
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Mawston remarked that Microsoft’s share is “near an all-time low”, with the company continuing to “lose ground” in feature phones and that its “Lumia” smartphone line is in a “holding pattern”. Xiaomi remains a major player in the China mobile phone market, but its local and worldwide growth is slowing and Xiaomi is facing intense competition from Huawei, Meizu and others.
