Scalper1 News
Apple ( AAPL ) iPhone sales to end users fell for the first time on a year-over-year basis in the fourth quarter, research firm Gartner ( IT ) said Thursday. The overall smartphone market saw sales to end users rise 9.7% worldwide to 403 million units in Q4. But iPhone sales declined 4.4% year over year to 71.5 million units, Gartner said. When Apple reported December-quarter results on Jan. 26, it said iPhone sales rose 0.4% to 74.78 million units. But Apple, among other vendors, counts iPhones sold into the sales channel, not those sold through to end customers. “Apple counts smartphone stock in retail inventory as ‘sold’ because Apple no longer owns it,” Gartner analyst Anshul Gupta told IBD via email. “Gartner does not consider this a sale to an end user and we use our own methodology to estimate sales to end users, based on Apple figures and other data.” Apple expects its own iPhone sales figures to fall on a year-over-year basis in the current quarter, Apple’s fiscal Q2 . Total industry smartphone sales to end users saw their slowest growth since 2008, Gartner said in a press release . In the fourth quarter, Samsung and Huawei were the only two top-five smartphone vendors to increase their sales to end users, Gupta said. South Korea-based Samsung continued to lead the industry, with sales to end users of 83.44 million smartphones in Q4, up 14.2% year over year. Its global smartphone market share rose to 20.7% last quarter from 19.9% a year earlier. Samsung makes smartphones based on the open-source Android operating system from Alphabet ‘s ( GOOGL ) Google. But Samsung’s share of the premium smartphone segment is eroding as more customers switch to iPhones, Gupta said. “For Samsung to stop its falling sales of premium smartphones, it needs to introduce new flagship smartphones that can compete with iPhones and stop the churn to iOS devices,” Gupta said. Samsung is expected to unveil its latest flagship phone, the Galaxy S7 series, on Sunday ahead of the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain. Apple easily held on to second place with 17.7% market share, down from 20.4% a year earlier. China-based Huawei came in third place with 32.12 million smartphones sold, up 52.7% year over year. Its market share jumped to 8% in Q4 from 5.7% a year earlier. Rounding out the top five last quarter were China-based vendors Lenovo and Xiaomi with 5% and 4.5% market share, respectively, Gartner said. Gartner expects Chinese smartphone makers to continue to grab market share in 2016. “They are well positioned to capitalize on demand for midrange to lower-end smartphones in emerging markets as they aggressively expand outside China,” Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza said in a report ahead of Mobile World Congress . “Their cost advantage allows them to push affordable, but more sophisticated midtier offerings, while increasing their brand awareness.” In terms of smartphone market share by operating system, Google’s Android OS climbed to 80.7% share in Q4, up from 76% in Q4 2014. The 17.7% share for Apple’s iOS was No. 2 Microsoft ‘s ( MSFT ) Windows faded to 1.1% market share in Q4, compared with 2.8% a year earlier. BlackBerry ( BBRY ) evaporated to 0.2% market share, vs. 0.5% in Q4 2014. Image provided by Shutterstock . RELATED: Over Quarter Of U.S. iPhone Owners Still Use 4-Inch Handsets Apple iPhone Sales In China Fall Off Cliff In January . Scalper1 News
Scalper1 News