Samsung slides in 1Q15 smartphone share as Apple continues mercurial sales figures

The story has remained the same in smartphone sales figures for 1Q2015. Apple and Chinese vendors have pulled more market share from Samsung and if this continues for another two quarters, we may see Apple take the lead in worldwide smartphone sales. Even in mobile phone sales, Samsung share has dipped and Microsoft (formerly Nokia) share is now in single digit.

According to Gartner, 333.6 million units of  smarpthones were sold last quarter and this is 19.3% increase YoY. This heavy growth is due to the faster penetration in emerging markets in Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, Middle East and North Africa).

“During this quarter, local brands and Chinese vendors came out as the key winners in emerging markets,” said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. “These vendors recorded an average growth of 73 percent in smartphone sales and saw their combined share go up from 38 percent to 47 percent during the first quarter of 2015.”

With the release of Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, Samsung has managed to slow the slide but it does not look enough as, thanks to strong iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sales across the globe, Apple is on a roll. The fact that Chinese smartphone makers started expanding into other emerging markets is not helping either. As a result, the gap between Samsung and Apple is now down to 21 million units (was 42 million the previous year when Samsung sold twice the number of smartphones than Apple).

iPhone 6 models also managed to take a bit of marketshare from Google. Android’s market share is now under 80%. Though Microsoft managed to sell more Lumia smartphones this quarter, the explosive growth in iOS and Android smartphone sales resulted in a negative growth in Window Phone market share. Blackberry’s OS remained in distant fourth, ready to go into “Others” category, with 0.6% market share.

Table 1

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 1Q15 (Thousands of Units)

Source: Gartner (May 2015)

*The results for Lenovo include sales of mobile phones by Lenovo and Motorola both in 1Q15 and 1Q14.

Table 2

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 1Q15 (Thousands of Units)

Source: Gartner (May 2015)

Coming to mobile phone sales, there is just 2.5% of increase in sales when compared to 1Q2014 sales. A total for 460.3 millions mobile phones were sold and eight  of the top 10 brands in 1Q2015 are from Asia (six are from India and China).

Table 3

Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 1Q15 (Thousands of Units)

Source: Gartner (May 2015)

*The results for Lenovo include sales of mobile phones by Lenovo and Motorola both in 1Q15 and 1Q14

Source