In the last three months of 2016, Apple had overtaken Samsung for the number 1 position in global smartphone shipments as reported by Strategy Analytics. They had shipped a total of 78.3 million iPhone units while controlling a market share of 17.8% in Q4 2016. This shouldn’t come as a surprise as Apple had just reported their record-breaking sales for the last quarter.
As a comparison, Samsung had shipped 77.5 million phones in the same period which is a decline from 81.3 million units shipped during Q4 2015. This is partially due to its Galaxy Note7 issue which led to a full recall.
For the entire 2016, Samsung still is the market leader with a total of 309.4 million units shipped and they command a market share of 20.8%. Apple is still placed second with 215.4 million shipped followed by Huawei at 138.8 million units. OPPO and Vivo are catching up fast with substantial growth. OPPO had doubled its shipments to 84.6 million units for 2016 followed by Vivo at 71.9 million units. Despite an overall global shipment growth of 9%, both Apple and Samsung are declining slightly in market share due to the rise of Chinese brands.
Huawei continues to show steady growth internationally thanks to better flagship models and stronger marketing exercise. However, they face tougher competition from the likes of OPPO and Vivo in their home ground in China. As for Samsung, it is clear that their Galaxy S7/S7 edge series is still holding up pretty well and the Korean smartphone maker hopes to make up for lost ground with their upcoming Galaxy S8 that’s due in Q2 this year.
Apple had clearly made a come back with the iPhone 7 especially after showing signs of decline in the first half of 2016. Despite losing a headphone jack and retaining the same exterior design, the iPhone 7 is proven to be a hot seller in the final months of 2016.
