Smartphone sales jump 15% in Q3; Huawei doubles sales

Apple smartphones continued to dominate the premium segment as overall smartphone sales increased by almost 15 per cent during the third quarter of 2015 compared to the same period last year.

According to a recent report by Gartner, worldwide sales of smartphones to end users in the third quarter of 2015 increased to 353 million units thanks to continued demand for affordable smartphones in emerging markets.

Although Apple and Samsung continued to dominate in terms of overall sales of devices, it is the Chinese smartphone maker Huawei that stole the show with a spectacular performance with sales almost doubling during the third quarter sales.

Huawei’s percentage of overall smartphone sales increased from 5.2 per cent (15.9 million units) during the Q3 2014 to 7.7 per cent (17.2 million units) during the same period in 2015. In fact Google has placed its bet on Huawei for its Nexus 6P, which is already attracting rave reviews for standing up against Samsung S6 and the iPhone 6S.

Meanwhile Apple sales continues to increase with 13.1 per cent of market share and 46 million units sold compared to 12.5 per cent and 28.1 million in Q3 2014. Samsung continues to remain number one with 83.5 million units however lost a bit of the market share. While the South Korean giant held 23.9 per cent of the market share in 3Q 2014, it marginally dropped to 23.7 per cent during the same period in 2015.

"The availability of affordable smartphones in emerging markets saw consumers upgrade their 'feature phones' to smartphones more quickly because of the small price gap," said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner.

"Smartphone sales in emerging markets rose to 259.7 million in the third quarter of 2015 — an 18.4 percent growth over the third quarter of 2014 — while sales in mature markets saw growth of just 8.2 percent over the same period."

Apple also made strong inroads into the market through its operating system where iOS grew 21 per cent, above market average. Android gained 1.4 percentage points in share year over year while Windows smartphone market share dropped from 3 per cent to 1.7 per cent year over year.

Earlier IDC in its report on total shipments during the third quarter said vendors had shipped a total of 355.2 million smartphones worldwide up 6.8 per cent from the 332.6 million units in 3Q14, but slightly below IDC's previous forecast of 363.8 million units.

"The third quarter placed a substantial emphasis on flagship devices as vendors tried to outclass each other in both features and design," said Anthony Scarsella, Research Manager, Mobile Phones.

"New flagship models translated to fiercer competition at the high-end for most players as many will try to challenge both Samsung and Apple for a place among the elite. However, despite the glitz and glamour at the high-end, we still expect the bulk of volume and growth to once again sprout from low to mid-range handsets, particularly in emerging markets."

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