While there were 408 million units of smartphones that were sold in the 4th quarter of 2017, these numbers were still not good enough to give the whole industry a boost. The numbers from Gartner showed that there was a 5.6% decline in sales as compared to the same period back in 2016. Meanwhile, Samsung was still able to “defend” it’s number 1 position despite having a 3.6% decline as well. The report comes just a few days before the launch of their latest flagship, so hopefully numbers will look up in the next few quarters.
According to Anshul Gupta, the research director at Gartner, there were two major reasons for the decline in the last quarter. One is that there is a dearth in “ultra low cost” smartphones that would entice feature phone users to switch to smartphones. They would rather just buy new quality feature phones instead of choose from among the many options of low-end offerings that are still not worth it. The other is that smartphone users are buying quality devices that would last them longer, prolonging the replacement cycle of the devices.
In terms of smartphone brands, Samsung still holds the top spot with an 18.2% market share, surviving an onslaught from Apple who was at second with 17.9%. Chinese brands round out the top 5 with Huawei, Xiaomi, and Oppo getting 10.8%, 6.9%, and 6.3% of the market respectively. Huawei and Xiaomi are the only two brands that were able to achieve year-on-year growth for the 4th quarter.
With the Mobile World Congress happening next week, expect OEMs to introduce new devices that will hopefully pull up the numbers for smartphones if not this quarter, at least for the next.
SOURCE: Gartner
