The International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker is one of the best ways to get the big picture of what is happening in the smartphone market real quick. With it’s big picture numbers, you get a sense of how the market is doing at any quarter within the year. With Q1 2018, there has been a 2.9% decline in smartphone shipments from last year.
It is correct to say that in smartphone sales, as the Chinese market goes, so goes everything else. And in Q1 this year, shipments in China were well below the 100 million mark – something that hasn’t happened since Q3 of 2013. It seems that even with the new flagship phones of Apple, Samsung, and Huawei, consumers were not willing to upgrade – and it probably was because of the big price tags attached to these flagships.
That said, Samsung still leads the global smartphone market in Q1 2018, getting 23.4% market share. Apple gets second place on the back of a 2.8% increase in shipments from last year, with the iPhone X and iPhone 8 models enjoying healthy sales. Huawei gets third place with its highest recorded market share of 11.8% , while Xiaomi and OPPO follow close behind.
Of these companies, it was Xiaomi who recorded the largest growth – from 4.3% last year to 8.4% this year in the same quarter. This is due primarily to Xiaomi’s growth outside of the Chinese market, with its push for market expansion in India and Southeast Asia.
SOURCE: IDC
