EGHAM, UK – Gartner Inc. said worldwide smartphone sales recorded the slowest growth rate since
2013 in the second quarter of 2015, some 330 million units, an increase of just
13.5 percent over the same period in 2014, reflecting a quarterly decline in
China, about a third of the world market.
“While demand for lower-cost 3G and 4G smartphones
continued to drive growth in emerging markets, overall smartphone sales
remained mixed region by region in the second quarter of 2015,” said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner.
Emerging Asia/Pacific (excluding China), Eastern
Europe and Middle East and Africa were the fastest-growing regions, driven by
good performance from Chinese and local vendors. By contrast, smartphone sales
in China fell for the first time year over year, recording a 4 percent decline.
“China is
the biggest country for smartphone sales, representing 30 percent of total
sales of smartphones in the second quarter of 2015. Its poor performance
negatively affected the performance of the mobile phone market in the second
quarter,” said Gupta. “China has reached saturation – its phone market is essentially driven
by replacement, with fewer first-time buyers. Beyond the lower-end phone
segment, the appeal of premium smartphones will be key for vendors to attract
upgrades and to maintain or grow their market share in China.”
Despite the launch of new S6 models, Samsung’s premium
phones continued to be challenged by Apple’s large-screen iPhones. Samsung lost
4.3 percentage points in market share and declined 5.3 percent in unit sales in
the second quarter of 2015. Huawei recorded the highest sales growth rate of
46.3 percent, thanks to strong overseas sales and 4G smartphone sales in China.
iPhone sales increased 36 percent, which helped Apple gain 2.4 percentage
points in market share. Apple recorded strong iPhone replacements in both
emerging and mature markets – and particularly in China. Total iPhone sales in China grew 68 percent to 11.9 million units.
Apple’s double-digit growth in the high-end segment
continued to negatively impact its rivals’ premium phone sales and profit
margins. Many vendors had to realign their portfolios
to remain competitive in the midrange and low-end smartphone segments. This
realignment resulted in price wars and discounting to clear up inventory for
new devices planned for the second half of 2015.
In the smartphoneoperating system(OS) market, Android’s global share was affected by the weak performance of
China in the second quarter of 2015 and the strong performance in China of
Apple, which has taken share from Android for the last three quarters.
“Android saw
its lowest year-over-year growth of 11 percent with share reaching 82.2 percent
in the second quarter of 2015,” said Gupta. Microsoft continued to
struggle to generate wider demand for Windows Phone devices – even at the lower
end. “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.
“The low
barrier to entry into the Android segment will continue to encourage an array
of new players, adding to further disruptions coming from Chinese manufacturing
and innovative Internet players with new business models that are not reliant
on hardware margins,” said Gupta.
Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled 446
million units during the second quarter of 2015. The performance was flat (0.4
per cent) year over year (see Table 3). Vendors that are focused on the
emerging markets, such as Huawei, ZTE, TCL Communication and Micromax,
benefited from high demand in these markets, while global vendors such as Sony,
Samsung and HTC struggled to achieve growth at the high end of the market.
