Smartphones Sales on Song Yet Again

Article By : Jonas Klar, EE Times Asia

Sales on the rise once more, Xiaomi assuming a meteoric trajectory

TAIPEI, Taiwan — The worldwide smartphone sales market has returned to growth in the first quarter of 2018 following a shaky end to 2017, according to Gartner. A total of 383 million smartphone units were reportedly sold during the first three months of 2018, on a 455 million unit total mobile phone market.

Samsung and Apple hold station at the top with more than 20 and 14 percent of the market respectively, while the main climbers in the rankings were Huawei and Xiaomi, the latter more than doubling its market share compared to the same timeframe last year.

Anshul Gupta

“Achieving 18.3 percent growth in the first quarter of 2018 helped Huawei close the gap with Apple,” commented Gartner’s Anshul Gupta. “However, its future growth increasingly depends on the vendor ramping up share in Emerging Asia/Pacific and resolving issues in the U.S. market, through the development of a stronger consumer brand. Huawei’s attempt to grow its premium smartphone portfolio with its recent launches of the P20, P20 Pro and Honor 10 helps raise its competitiveness and growth potential.”

When it comes to operating system market shares, iOS and Android alternatives managed to ship only 1.311 million units, occupying a mere 0.034 percent of the total market. Android’s market share remained at the same levels as it did for 2017 as a whole, while slightly declining year-on-year.

— Jonas Klar is an editor for EE Times Asia