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Declining sales and growth of Chinese brands sees iPhone’s worldwide market share drop three points

Apple’s falling sales coupled to strong growth from emerging Chinese brands saw the iPhone’s worldwide market share drop just over three points from 17.9% in the first quarter of 2015 to 14.8% in the same quarter this year, according to Gartner.

Although a saturated smartphone market is part of the challenge faced by Apple, global smartphone sales did continue to grow, by 3.9% to 349M units.

Market leader Samsung also saw its share fall in the same period …

Gartner’s numbers show Samsung’s market share falling from 24.1% to 23.2%.

The big winners were Chinese brands Huawei and Oppo. Huawei saw its share climb from 5.4% to 8.3%, while Oppo doubled its slice of the cake from 2% to 4.6%. Apple clone-maker Xiaomi, however, was almost static at 4.3%.

“In a slowing smartphone market where large vendors are experiencing growth saturation, emerging brands are disrupting existing brands’ long-standing business models to increase their share,” Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner, said in a statement. “With such changing smartphone market dynamics, Chinese brands are emerging as the new top global brands.”

As investors are unsure which way they should bet, Apple has been increasingly emphasising the potential for revenue from services thanks to a market of more than a billion active devices.

Via Fortune and Indian Express. Photo: CNBC.

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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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