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Gartner: Worldwide iPhone sales grew 36% YOY, while Samsung sales fell 5.3%

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New data from Gartner suggests that iPhone sales grew 36% year-on-year, while Samsung’s sales fell 5.3% in the same period. Apple’s market share climbed from 12.2% in Q2 2014 to 14.6% in the same quarter this year. Other winners were Chinese brands Huawei and Xiaomi.

Gartner said that while overall smartphone growth was sluggish, Apple continued to dominate the premium end of the market, with other vendors struggling to compete.

Apple’s double-digit growth in the high-end segment continued to negatively impact its rivals’ premium phone sales and profit margins. Many vendors had to realign their portfolios to remain competitive in the midrange and low-end smartphone segments. This realignment resulted in price wars and discounting to clear up inventory for new devices planned for the second half of 2015 … 

The company said that Apple performed well in both emerging and mature markets, with growing its business in China by 68% despite total smartphone revenue in the country falling by 4%. Research director Anshul Gupta (via TechCrunch) said that Apple was the brand Chinese consumers wanted to own.

[Apple is] a big brand and people really associate that with their status and it’s kind of an aspirational brand so many of the consumers in China expect to own an iPhone at some point of time. To some extent it has affected replacement sales for Android phones because Android users are holding onto their phones for a little longer in the hope of buying an iPhone.

Apple recently reported that its total revenue for the quarter (Apple’s fiscal Q3) across all products was up 33% worldwide, with Chinese revenue more than doubling at 112% growth. While Apple’s market share in China was recently reported to have dropped, this number is of limited interest to Apple, which focuses on profitability.

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Comments

  1. 89p13 - 9 years ago

    Putting aside all the lawsuits and counter lawsuits between Samsung and Apple – Samsung’s phone business is in trouble. Their sales – while still bigger than Apples world wide – have been in free fall for the last year or so. Even when they introduced last year’s “Flagship” models – they removed some of the features that they had over the iPhones: Removable batteries and SD card support.

    Where was their edge – they dumped them in favor of becoming more like Apple. Yes – they still sell a boat load of their cheap phones in emerging and 3rd world countries – but this isn’t the highly profitable, expensive phone that they are chasing.

    • There’s one interesting thing I found out. Apple devices are beautiful on pictures and something stunning live. Samsung on the other hand is totally different. Looks somewhat alright on pictures and is so ugly live. I saw the Edge the other week and I wanted to puke. It’s so ugly and pointless. I would never buy that phone paying more than for an iPhone.

  2. lkrupp215 - 9 years ago

    And yet the financial pundits are talking about something they call a “death cross” in their charts and graphs that predict AAPL is set for a major fall. Wall Street just doesn’t care how many iPhones were sold. Wall Street thinks Apple is on the way out.

  3. cdm283813 - 9 years ago

    I wonder what people will say and what Apple will do once the Chinese OEM’s dominate the Android playing field with sub $300 flagships? If Samsung is gone will Apple rely on some Chinese manufacturing firms for cpu’s and memory chips?
    You guys may want Samsung gone but there is a three headed Chinese dragon willing to step in. Does Apple really want $200 to $300 Chinese Android flagships looking better than $650 to $1000 iPhones? Think about that for a minute.

    • Joe Belkin - 9 years ago

      It will be a repeat of the WIN PC market – a fight to the bottom. $300 full retail is now the new norm for android flagship phones (why samsung is overpriced by 300%) and it will only creep lower and lower as second tier companies try to claw for marketshare and EOS manufacturing costs. Lenovo/Moto will go to $249. HTC is fighting for its life so will roll the dice and go to $229 – Xiomai in losing market share will go to $199 – then Indian companies will come in at $189. Samsung in trying to preserve it’s market will go to $179 and pretty soon, $99 is the new norm as Vietnamese companies arrive. MEANWHILE, Apple is not the lowest bid assemblage of components as with the WIN PC side and remains the only premium brand. It is the ONLY phone you step up to … just like Macs to WIN PC. No one is willing to pay more than 35% of the prie of a Mac for a WIN PC – same with smartphones. This won’t change for a LONG time unless a) Apple screws up and B) a new company with an actual reputation enters the fray who is not like the current competitors of me-too product managers company with 200 phones and the flagship phone consists of 3 features not in the 2nd best phone. NO ONE is willing down Appl’e s100 million+ purchases a year whether it’s a sound chip or the processor manufacturing … worse case sceanrio for Apple – they get Intel to fab their chips. Hardly a tragedy. Oh yea, Apple (other than samsung) designs and “makes” their own chips so they control their own destiny – pretty soon, they’ll have sapphire screens that no one else does and even though ipad sales are not growing, it’s still a $30 billion segment … AND only Apple makes BILLIONS in each sgment of the iphone circle (music only ipods, TV viewing AppleTV, giant iphone ipads and tiny iphone smartwatches). Apple is better than gold becayuse after all, gold is a commodity. Apple is oxygen.

      • cdm283813 - 9 years ago

        Messed up part is that I’ve already bought 3 prepaid phones for under $30 just to give as Android media players. For my Nokia 635 phone I made $5 on the deal. 2 years from now I totally see all the players changing (including Apple) in some fashion. Apple can’t keep selling $650 plus phones forever.

  4. macnificentseven48 - 9 years ago

    Apple shareholders will still lose out. Wall Street has no more interest in China and they’re only concerned about smartphone sales in India. They know Apple can’t possibly compete in India and will end up the biggest loser. Investors are betting heavily on Android to destroy Apple’s iPhone business. They know Google is going to keep pushing those $50 Android One smartphones and Apple can’t touch that. Future smartphone market share in India is now all that matters and Wall Street has already decided Apple is doomed in India. I’m not sure how anyone can profit from selling $50 smartphones but plenty of analysts think it’s a great market to dominate. Apple is seen as the only loser because it’s the only company unwilling to built dirt-cheap smartphones in India.

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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