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    Tuesday, February 27, 2018

    Samsung, Apple Top Smartphone Sales Globally

    While global smartphone sales to end users were down 4.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2017, Samsung retained its top spot with 18.2 per cent share.. The South Korean giant though saw a year-on-year unit decline of 3.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2017, but this did not prevent it from defending its top global smartphone vendor position against Apple.

    Samsung and Apple topped the global sales of smartphones to end users in the fourth quarter of 2017, a study of the global smartphone market by Gartner Incorporation revealed.
    Despite a year-on-year unit decline of 3.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2017, the report showed that Samsung maintained its number one global smartphone vendor position, selling 74,026.6 units from October to December 2017.

    Apple came in the second place, selling 73,175.2 units within the same period.
    “Despite the start of a slowdown in sales of Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and S8+, the overall success of those models has helped Samsung improve overall average selling price. Samsung is poised to announce the successors to its Galaxy series of smartphones at Mobile World Congress this year,” Gartner said.

    The report predicted that the launches of Samsung’s next flagship devices were likely to boost the smartphone sales in the first quarter of 2018.

    It added, “Although Samsung’s significant sales volumes lean toward mid-price and entry-level models, which now face extreme competition and reducing contribution, its profit and average selling price may further improve if these next flagship smartphones are successful.”

    Gartner said Apple’s market share stabilised in the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to the same quarter in 2016 when iPhone sales fell by five per cent.

    “Apple was in a different position this quarter than it was 12 months before,” the Research Director at Gartner, Mr. Anshul Gupta, said.  “It had three new smartphones — the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X — yet its performance in the quarter was overshadowed by two factors. First, the later availability of the iPhone X led to slow upgrades to iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, as users waited to try the more-expensive model.

    “Second, component shortages and manufacturing capacity constraints preceded a long delivery cycle for the iPhone X, which returned to normal by early December 2017. We expect good demand for the iPhone X to likely bring a delayed sales boost for Apple in the first quarter of 2018,” Gupta added.

    Meanwhile, Huawei and Xiaomi were the only vendors in the top five to experience growth in the fourth quarter.

    Findings by Gartner showed that global sales of smartphones to end users totalled nearly 408 million units in the fourth quarter of 2017, a 5.6 per cent decline over the fourth quarter of 2016.

    This is the first year-on-year decline since Gartner started tracking the global smartphone market in 2004.

    “Two main factors led to the fall in the fourth quarter of 2017,” Gupta said, adding, “First, upgrades from feature phones to smartphones have slowed down due to a lack of quality ‘ultra-low-cost’ smartphones and users preferring to buy quality feature phones.

    “Second, replacement smartphone users are choosing quality models and keeping them longer, lengthening the replacement cycle of smartphones. Moreover, while demand for high quality, 4G connectivity and better camera features remained strong, high expectations and few incremental benefits during replacement weakened smartphone sales.”
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