Gartner: Apple's global smartphone market share dropped to third place in the first quarter

Against the backdrop of a shrinking global smartphone market, the market has undergone a reshuffle, with China's Huawei surpassing the United States' Apple to become the world's second largest smartphone manufacturer. According to foreign media reports, Gartner, a US technology market research company, recently released a report showing that global smartphone sales fell by 2.7% in the first quarter of 2019, with Apple's sales plummeting by nearly 20%.

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The report shows that Huawei ranked second thanks to its strong performance in China.

According to Gartner, global smartphone sales to end users fell 2.7% to 373 million units in the first quarter of 2019. Although Huawei does not sell in the United States, it remains the world's second-largest smartphone vendor and continues to narrow the gap with first-place Samsung Electronics of South Korea.

"Demand for premium smartphones remains lower than that for low-end smartphones, which is affecting brands such as Samsung Electronics and Apple, which have a large market share in the premium segment," said Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner.

"Also, demand for smartphones has declined as feature phones that can access 4G networks offer users a huge advantage at a lower cost, slowing the pace of upgrading from feature phones to smartphones," the analyst said.

Slowing innovation and rising prices for flagship smartphones continue to lengthen consumer replacement cycles. Sales in the United States and China, the two countries with the largest smartphone sales, fell 15.8% and 3.2%, respectively, in the first quarter of 2019.

Samsung Electronics maintained its top position in global smartphone sales in the first quarter of 2019, with a market share of 19.2%. Huawei achieved the largest year-on-year growth among the top five global smartphone companies, up 44.5%, with total smartphone sales reaching 58.4 million units.

Huawei smartphone sales increased in all regions. "Huawei performed particularly well in its two largest regions, Europe and Greater China, where smartphone sales increased by 69% and 33%, respectively," said Gupta. Huawei continued to dominate in Greater China, with a 29.5% market share, which helped it achieve the ranking of the world's second largest smartphone vendor in the first quarter of 2019.

"If Huawei smartphones are not available with Google apps and services, it will disrupt Huawei's international smartphone business, which accounts for nearly half of Huawei's global smartphone business. Most importantly, it raises concerns among buyers, limiting Huawei's growth in the near term," Gupta said.

Samsung and Apple declined year-on-year

Samsung Electronics remains the world's largest smartphone seller even as its smartphone sales fell 8.8% in the first quarter of 2019.

"Samsung launched its flagship Galaxy S10 smartphone portfolio, which received a good response. However, its impact was limited as Samsung only started selling the S10 at the end of the first quarter. Samsung also launched the new A series and J series as well as the newly launched M series to enhance its mid-range and entry-level smartphone series, but fierce competition from Chinese manufacturers limited their impact." said the above analyst.

In the first quarter of 2019, Apple's total iPhone sales were 44.6 million units, down 17.6% year-on-year. Gupta said, "Price cuts for iPhones in various markets have driven demand growth, but it is not enough to restore growth in the first quarter. Apple faces a longer replacement cycle because it is difficult for users to see enough value benefits to justify replacing their existing iPhones."

Previously, a report from IDC, another technology market research company, showed that Apple’s smartphone sales plummeted by 30% in the first quarter.

Apple no longer releases smartphone sales in its financial reports. The sharp drop in mobile phone sales has caused Apple's sales revenue and profits to fall significantly. The company is facing a crisis and needs to develop new growth businesses besides smartphones (personal computers and tablets have been declining for many years).

Fifth place race

In the first quarter of 2019, Vivo beat Xiaomi to take the fifth place. Vivo sold 27.4 million smartphones in the quarter. Xiaomi sold 27.2 million units.

New features such as in-display fingerprint scanners, fast charging and nearly bezel-less displays helped Vivo achieve double-digit smartphone sales growth in the first quarter of 2019.

"However, the company could do better by expanding its range of entry-level smartphones and selling them in emerging Asia-Pacific markets," said analyst Gupta.