Since 2004 the market research and consulting firm Gartner has been recording worldwide sales of smartphones. Now, for the very first time, the figures reveal that there is no longer any growth.
During the fourth quarter of 2017 Gartner are reporting that 408 million smartphones were indeed sold, but that was in fact 5.6 percent fewer than in the matching period a year earlier. Analyst Anshul Gupta considers two factors responsible for the very first decline since Gartner started keeping an eye on smartphone figures. Firstly, there was a slowdown in people switching from simple “feature phones” to smartphones due to a lack on the market of inexpensive, high-quality smartphones. And secondly, those buying replacement smartphones are opting for high-quality models and using them longer – a trend intensified by the current shortage of real progress in technical development.
In terms of units sold, Samsung narrowly outperformed Apple in 4Q17, followed by Huawei, Xiaomi and Oppo – three Chinese manufacturers. All other providers share the remaining 40 percent of the market between them. In terms of turnover, however, thanks to its particularly expensive new flagship model “iPhone X” Apple has taken more than half of the total market (51 percent) according to Strategy Analytics. When it comes to profit, Apple’s share of the pie is even considerably higher. It was recently calculated to be 72 percent according to Forbes, followed by Samsung with 24 percent. Astonishingly, Huawei is the only other profitable manufacturer (OEM) on the market.
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See how industries integrate transactional SMS into their day-to-day business.
