Chinese brands Huawei and Oppo boost market share at expense of Samsung & Apple

The latest figures from Strategy Analytics show that Chinese brands Huawei and Oppo were the main winners in a year that saw the first ever fall in global smartphone sales, with established brands Samsung and Apple both seeing falls in their share.

Linda Sui, Director at Strategy Analytics, said, “Global smartphone shipments fell 3 percent annually from 345.0 million units in Q1 2015 to 334.6 million in Q1 2016. It is the first time ever since the modern smartphone market began in 1996 that global shipments have shrunk on an annualized basis. Smartphone growth is slowing due to increasing penetration maturity in major markets like China and consumer caution about the future of the world economy.”

While Samsung held its number one place in the rankings, it saw its sales drop by 3.7M year-on-year, while Apple’s iPhone sales dropped by 10M in the same time-frame. It was Chinese brands which picked up these lost sales …

Woody Oh, Director at Strategy Analytics, added, “Huawei maintained third position with 8 percent global smartphone marketshare in Q1 2016, up from 5 percent a year ago. Huawei grew 64 percent annually to ship an impressive 28.3 million smartphones worldwide in the quarter. Huawei is closing the gap on Apple, but Huawei itself is now being chased hard by ambitious rivals like Oppo and Vivo.”

Oppo almost doubled its market share from 2.4% to 4.6% as it became a better-known name across Asia through 4G models like the R9. Samsung held its top ranking largely as a result of its flagship Galaxy S7 and popular J-series models.

Xiaomi saw its sales fall slightly, in large part due to the increasing popularity of Oppo.

Samsung earlier reported a 12% rise in profits year-on-year, in part due to the earlier launch of its popular Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge handsets.