Sales of iPhones were up to 48 million during the quarter compared to 35.2 million for the same period past year .
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Global mobile phone sales totalled 446 million units during the quarter.
Apple, however, boosted its share year-on-year from 12.2 per cent to 14.6 per cent this year, so Cupertino is now only 5 per cent behind Samsung in terms of global market share.
The only two smartphone companies showing growth in China were Apple and Huawei who recorded the highest sales growth rate of 46.3 percent, thanks to strong overseas sales and 4G smartphone sales in China. “Emerging markets will continue to show huge growth in the coming years as contribution from Smartphone in overall sales has been less than 30 percent in many market”, Gupta said.
But premium smartphones haven’t exactly worked out well for Samsung, which reported poorer than expected smartphone sales in its second quarter earnings.
He added that China has reached “saturation”, its telephone market is actually pushed by alternative, with fewer first-time consumers. “Past the lower-end telephone phase, the attraction of premium smartphones shall be key for distributors to draw upgrades and to take care of or develop their market share in China”. As previously mentioned, smartphones operating with iOS had an increase of 36 percent in sales last quarter, giving iOS 14.6 percent of the market share.
“Samsung is struggling to grow sales past the 80 million mark”, Gupta added. This is only 0.4 percent increase year over year. Despite launching new S6 models this quarter, Samsung’s market share decreased to 21.9% compared with 26.2% during the same period in 2014, according to data from Gartner Research.
“They’ve been driving the market in smartphone sales”. This gave a market share of just 6.2 percent, down from 9.9 percent a year ago.
A cooling of smartphone sales in China suggests the world’s biggest market for the devices has reached a saturation point, posing challenges for manufacturers, a research report said Thursday.
The electronics maker has faced more competition from vendors based in China such as Huawei and Xiaomi on the smartphone lower end and from Apple on the upper end.
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“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”, said Gupta.
