iPhone marketshare dips to 14.8% amid tougher Chinese competition, Gartner says

Apple's year-over-year drop in smartphone sales during the March quarter also caused the company to lose marketshare, though part of the shift can be linked to fast-rising Chinese smartphone makers, according to new research data.

Although Apple held onto second place, it saw its marketshare slide to 14.9 percent from 17.9 percent a year ago, Gartner said in its latest industry report. iPhone unit sales were down from approximately 60.177 million to just under 51.63 million.

Samsung remained the global leader in the smartphone market, growing sales slightly to almost 81.187 million units. Its share nevertheless slipped slightly, from 24.1 to 23.2 percent.

Perhaps the biggest reason is Huawei, which leapt ahead from a 5.4 percent share to 8.3, with sales up from about 18.111 million to 28.861 million. Another Chinese smartphone maker, Oppo, saw its share more than double from 2 percent to 4.6 percent, as its sales increased from roughly 6.585 million to over 16.112 million.

Xiaomi saw sales rise from roughly 14.740 million to 15.048 million, but this wasn't enough to keep up its share, which dipped a tenth of a percentage point to 4.3 percent.

The smartphone market as a whole grew 3.9 percent to approximately 349 million. Notably, falling out of the top five vendors — and even the top 10 — was Lenovo, which is however leading the global laptop market.

Apple's iPhone sales aren't expected to resume high performance until this fall, when company should ship the "iPhone 7" and "7 Plus." While the standard 7 model may be a relatively conventional upgrade, rumors have hinted that the Plus will get a dual-lens camera and a Smart Connector.

65 Comments

mj web 914 comments · 16 Years

About 8 years ago

Perhaps its time to stop resting on Apple's laurels and make a new iPhone every year instead if every (snooze) two years?

cali 3494 comments · 10 Years

This is fucking disgusting.

The fact you can just steal a company's hard work and creation and sell it right next to the original is sad.

I watched the full 2007 iPhone keynote yesterday and it changed my view even more on IP theft. I have ZERO respect for the knockoff brands and have even more respect for Apple.

the part where Steve says "we filed over 200 patents for this phone and we plan on protecting them". It's like he truly believed his work would be protected but the U.S. government didn't give a shit and it's probably worse in other countries.

Imagine the billions of dollars IP theft had caused Apple?

rogifan_new 4297 comments · 9 Years

And Gartner's sales data comes from where?

teejay2012 410 comments · 12 Years

hjmnl said:

This doesn't surprise me at all. If you look at the offerings from midrange phones from Samsung, xiaomi, Huawei and others, you don't have to be a genius to see that's what they have to offer is on par with the top line of what Apple has to offer for a third of the prize. Their top lines are even better then the iPhone and Google now and Google services are far beyond Apple services. Apple has fallen asleep since last year. I'm afraid we'll see more decline soon. Not only in phones sold. That's how the market works. If you sell the best phones, a premium price is justified. The company Apple today is ripping of loyal customers and insulting it's intellect.

I prefer iOS over Android. I can't use iOS unless I have an iPhone. Not sure I understand your narrowly focused rant on hardware.

mj web said:

Perhaps its time to stop resting on Apple's laurels and make a new iPhone every year instead if every (snooze) two years?

What evidence is there that people want to buy a new phone every year? People don't buy new cars or furniture or appliances every year. Why does a phone need to look new every year? To me that's just change for change sake. Honestly I think slowing smartphone sales are more about maturing technology to the point where these devices are good enough. They're fast enough and the displays are high quality enough for what most people use them for. Other than cameras and battery life I'm not sure there's a lot of new technology that will make people want to buy a new phone every year. I'm not convinced that VR is going to be a mass market thing. Nothing that requires a big contraption on your face will.