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iPhone sales stay strong amid worldwide smartphone market slowdown

Apple's iPhone continues to gain marketshare despite a slowing global smartphone market during the second quarter, doing particularly well in China — where the overall market actually shrunk by 4 percent year-over-year.

Chinese iPhone sales rose 68 percent to 11.9 million units in the second calendar quarter of this year, according to Gartner research estimates published on Thursday. That rate was stronger than Apple's worldwide growth of 36 percent, which put it up 2.4 percentage points to a 14.6 percent share. Global smartphone sales were up 13.5 percent to 330 million, the slowest growth since 2013.

Huawei, though, saw even faster growth than Apple at 46.3 percent, pushing its share from 6.1 to 7.8 percent. The company did well in both its Chinese homeland and in foreign markets.

Samsung's share dropped 4.3 points to 21.9 percent, leaving it in the lead but significantly impacted by the iPhone, Gartner said. The iPhone's effect on rival high-end devices was in fact claimed to have forced competitors to realign their middle and low-end portfolios, in turn leading to price battles and discounts to make room for new devices in the second half of the year.

Android remained the lead smartphone platform, but saw its share dip slightly from 83.8 percent to 82.2. Windows slid from 2.8 percent to 2.5 percent, while BlackBerry fell from 0.7 percent to 0.3.

Gartner, as with a number of other research entities, credited Apple's success on the decision to boost screen sizes for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus to 4.7 and 5.5 inches, respectively. Prior to 2014, no iPhone had a screen bigger than 4 inches, despite the competition approaching or exceeding the 5-inch mark.



43 Comments

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

Interesting that financial pundits are yammering about something they call the ‘death cross’ on their precious charts and graphs that predict a collapse of AAPL. Wall Street doesn’t like Apple, never has, and never will. It’s amazing that AAPL is at the level it is given this inbred disdain for the company. Perhaps it’s all because Apple doesn’t play by the rules?

singularity 1323 comments · 11 Years

[quote name="sog35" url="/t/187807/iphone-sales-stay-strong-amid-worldwide-smartphone-market-slowdown/0_40#post_2763892"]Apple should go private. Stock down another $3 today.  Even though they are DOMINATING the industry and growing iPhone sales and selling prices at an incredible rate. Stock is down 16% after reporting record breaking earnings and 40% EPS growth YoY. Apple investors need to face the facts:  Wall Street will never value Apple fairly.   I think its time for Tim Cook to float a rumor that Apple is seriously thinking of taking the company private. [/quote] It will never happen. Stop living in a dream world

mike1 3437 comments · 10 Years

Quote:
Originally Posted by lkrupp 
 

Interesting that financial pundits are yammering about something they call the ‘death cross’ on their precious charts and graphs that predict a collapse of AAPL. Wall Street doesn’t like Apple, never has, and never will. It’s amazing that AAPL is at the level it is given this inbred disdain for the company. Perhaps it’s all because Apple doesn’t play by the rules?

Apple does what is best for the company long term and that doesn't always align with the interests of wall street that focus on the short term. I don't pretend know all the ramifications of or difficulties in taking Apple private, but philosophically, it's the right candidate for that because of the diametrically opposed goals of the company and a large part of the investor community.

total 83 comments · 11 Years

yes, i will wait until it fall below $100 and then i will buy again! Just look at NASDAQ overall, there is still almost no correction visible if you plot 5Y chart for example, which makes room for further decline.

schlack 732 comments · 11 Years

Apple is super discounted at it's current price. Even at 150 it would be a pretty solid value compared to most of it's competition. At least when comparing it's stock price to company earnings/cash/revenue. But, competition is definitely heating up and Apple will have to work hard to stay on top. Hope they can keep it up for awhile longer.