The global smartphone (smartphone) market weakened in the third quarter of 2019, but Samsung's sales still increased, helping the company continue to strengthen its position as the number one global manufacturer, according to a newly released report. by the research firm Gartner.
Samsung Maintaining the top position, Apple is exhausted
Gartner's report said that global smartphone sales in the last quarter decreased slightly by 0.4% compared to the same period last year, to 387.48 million units.
However, in the midst of the market saturation, Samsung still grew quite well with the global smartphone market share increasing to 20.4% from 18.9% in the third quarter of 2018.
In the last quarter, Samsung sold 79.05 million smartphones, an increase of 7.8% compared to 73.3 million units in the same period last year, helping the company maintain its position as the number one smartphone manufacturer in the world. Analysts say that Samsung's efforts to improve its product portfolio, focusing on the mid-range smartphone segment and the low-end segment, have brought "sweet fruit".
Global sales (million units) and market share (%) of smartphones of Samsung, Huawei, Apple, Xiaomi, Oppo and others in the third quarter of 2019 compared to the second quarter of 2018. Photo: Gartner
Meanwhile, Apple experienced an unfavorable quarter. Although it still holds the position of the third largest smartphone manufacturer globally with 40.83 million iPhones sold in the third quarter, this number decreased by 10.7% compared to the same period last year. The decline in sales led to Apple's global smartphone market share falling from 11.8% in the third quarter of last year to 10.5% in the third quarter of this year.
Gartner's report says there are two factors that cause Apple's iPhone sales to decline. First, consumers are moving towards the mid-range segment, where Apple doesn't have many products to compete with. Even Apple's newest and cheapest iPhone models are priced above the mid-range price range.
“Today, smartphone users are turning to mid-range smartphones because they are more value for money,” said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner.
Second, consumers are waiting to buy 5G iPhone models, but Apple decided to wait until next year to launch these smartphone models.
However, Gartner analysts believe that Apple's newly launched iPhone 11 series could achieve better sales results in the last quarter of this year.
Huawei suddenly grew strongly
Not only Samsung, Chinese smartphone companies such as Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo are also improving their product portfolio in the mid-range and low-end segments because they realize that the purchasing power in the high-end segment has been saturated.
Huawei's smartphone sales unexpectedly grew by double digits despite the gloomy market and the US technology embargo. In the third quarter, Huawei sold 65.8 million units, an increase of 26% compared to the same period last year.
The driving force behind this growth mainly came from the domestic market, with 40.5 million Huawei smartphones sold in the third quarter. This figure helped Huawei's smartphone market share in China increase by 15 percentage points in the last quarter. via.
Gartner analysts say the US technology embargo against Huawei, although not yet fully applied, is negatively affecting the Huawei brand in the international market. This ban makes Huawei's newly launched smartphone models without popular Google apps pre-installed such as Gmail, YouTube, Google Search, Google Maps, etc.
On November 20, US Commerce Department officials said they had granted sales permits to 25% out of 300 applications from US companies that were exempt from imposing a sales ban on Huawei.
Huawei is following closely Samsung ranked smartphone market share globally. Photo: Quora
Two days earlier, the US Commerce Department for the third time extended a temporary license, allowing US companies to continue doing business with Huawei to help maintain telecommunications networks in rural America, which are heavily using Huawei devices.
Tensions with the US over Canada's arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou at the request of the US and the US tech embargo imposed on Huawei have stoked patriotism in China, helping Huawei win big in the domestic market.
"The current tense situation with the US has revived patriotism, and now they are more enthusiastic in their efforts to promote Huawei's smartphones in China," the Huawei report said.
Huawei has set its sights on becoming the number one smartphone maker globally, but is now reevaluating that goal after being blacklisted by the US, barring purchases from US companies in May.
Xiaomi (China) rose to the position of the third largest smartphone manufacturer globally, although its smartphone sales in the third quarter of this company decreased slightly to 32.27 million units. In fifth place is Oppo, another Chinese smartphone maker, with a global market share of 8%.
The market share of the remaining smartphone brands including Vivo, OnePlus, Motorola, Nokia, Asus, Google Pixel ... decreased to 35.8% compared to 39.6% in the third quarter of last year.
The Gartner report predicts that global smartphone sales will improve in the fourth quarter thanks to promotional campaigns during the shopping festivals Black Friday (November 29) and Cyber Monday (December 2) this year.
Khanh Lan
* Source: Saigon Times