Roger Fingas
Though slowing as a whole, the global cellphone industry — including both smartphones and feature phones — saw several platform rankings shake-ups during the June quarter, with Apple rising to second place and helping to push Microsoft into fourth place, according to Strategy Analytics data published on Thursday.
Apple's 35 percent bump in iPhone shipments year-over-year to 47.5 million gave it a 10.9 percent marketshare of mobile operating systems, even though it doesn't sell feature phones, the research firm said. Microsoft's total shipments, meanwhile, plummeted from 50.3 million to 27.8 million, kicking it out of second place and leaving it with just 6.4 percent of the market.
The latter's catastrophic performance was blamed on a decline in its feature phone sales, and Lumia smartphones going into a "holding pattern" while the company prepares Windows 10 models for later in 2015. Earlier this month, Microsoft announced plans to axe up to 7,800 former Nokia workers, and absorb a $7.6 billion write-down for its cellphone business, plus restructuring charges between $750 million and $850 million.
Samsung remained the leader in the June quarter, although its share slipped from 22.3 to 20.5 percent as shipments declined from 95.3 million to 89 million. Huawei assumed third place as its share rose from 4.8 percent to 7 percent, or 30.6 million units. Xiaomi claimed fifth spot with a 4.6 percent slice, up from 3.5 percent.
Overall cellphone sales inched ahead 2 percent from 428 million to 434.6 million, the industry's weakest performance in two years, Strategy Analytics said. The issue was linked to slowing demand in the U.S., China, and Europe.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
Andrew O'Hara
William Gallagher
32 Comments
And this means what exactly?
And this means what exactly?
The 'feature phone' category is shrinking fast. It is really not big news to Apple because there are no profits down there and most of those people will buy a cheapo Android. In the third would feature phones still sell ok, and that is how Microsoft is even number four, because of its purchase of Nokia.
[quote name="BeltsBear" url="/t/187426/surging-iphone-plummeting-feature-phone-sales-push-apple-past-microsoft-in-mobile-market#post_2754517"][QUOTE name="lkrupp" url="/t/187426/surging-iphone-plummeting-feature-phone-sales-push-apple-past-microsoft-in-mobile-market#post_2754512"] And this means what exactly?[/QUOTE] The 'feature phone' category is shrinking fast. It is really not big news to Apple because there are no profits down there and most of those people will buy a cheapo Android. In the third would feature phones still sell ok, and that is how Microsoft is even number four, because of its purchase of Nokia. [/quote] People can't buy what's not being made, and even if they are being made the carriers don't sell them because they'd rather have you on a more expensive smartphone plan.
I'll never understand why Apple blogs and rumors sites care so much about these stilly market share reports. We have no idea where they get their data from and since Apple is really the only company to announce sales data it's impossible to know what the market is and what Apple's share of it is. Let's not forget in 2011/2012 some of these same firms were predicting Windows phone would overtake iOS as the #2 platform by now. That's how little credibility they have.
They're being made and sold (if not actively promoted). I was in my local AT&T store last week and there were six different feature phones on the wall. I asked who's buys them and the salesperson said mostly senior citizens and those with a need for a second phone because they have a company smartphone.
Sales drives what's being made, not the other way around.