Samsung remained the leader in the worldwide smartphone market for the quarter and the year with 85.6 million units shipped in 4Q15, up 14% from last year.
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Previous year was adamant for some of the most prestigious brands in the smartphone business, as shipment volumes set a new record high with more than 1.4 billion units shipped in 2015.
Meanwhile, No. 2 Apple saw 74.8 million phones shipped in the fourth quarter, a new high, IDC noted, but only 300,000 units more than it shipped in the fourth quarter of 2014. This helped the company become the fourth mobile phone maker to ship more than 100 million units in a year, joining Apple, Samsung and Nokia. Samsung which shipped about 320 million smartphones in 2015, down slightly from a year earlier.
“Smartphone growth is slowing due to increasing penetration maturity in major markets like China and consumer worries about the future of the world economy”, she said. Apple came in second with 231.5 million iPhone shipments, an increase of 202 percent from 2014. Then consider Samsung’s slowpoke delivery of updates – which caused a lawsuit – and the lukewarm reception to the Galaxy S6, and you can see why the three competitors did well. Other Chinese manufacturers like Lenovo and Xiaomi brought up the rear with 20.2 million and 18.2 million smartphone shipments globally.
“While there is a lot of uncertainty around the economic slowdown in China, Huawei is one of the few brands from China that has successfully diversified worldwide, with nearly half of its shipments going outside of China”, Chau said in a statement. Apple shipped a whopping 74.8 million units, an increase of 1 percent compared to the last quarter of 2014.
IDC says smartphone shipments crossed 1.4 billion with Apple, Huawei making the most gains.
There is also confirmation that Apple’s period of sustained iPhone growth may be at an end. Lenovo is still 4th with 74 million (5.2 percent) and Xiaomi posts 70.8 million (4.9 percent). The comparison is largely unbalanced, however, as Samsung sells dozens of different smartphone models worldwide, while Apple now only sells the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and iPhone 5s.
Despite launching just two iPhones, Apple performed admirably in the calendar year, recording growth of 76 per cent and 18 per cent in India and China over 2014 figures.
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Linda Sui, Director at Strategy Analytics, added, “Vivo held on to fourth position with 10 percent smartphone marketshare in China during Q4 2015, while its shipment growth rate expanded a healthy 20 percent annually”.
