• Michael
• On February 23, 2018

Global smartphone shipments declined for the first time ever in Q4 2017

The smartphone market has reached its peak, according to a report by Gartner who informs that the Q4 2017 marks the first ever year-on-year decline since the company tracks the market in 2004. The worldwide shipments of smart phones totaled 408 million units in the last quarter of 2017, while the sales in 2016 were 432 million.

A 5.6 percent decline in the global sales is a historic moment in the industry. With minor hardware and software upgrades compared with previous generations, and prices of high-end models reaching around $1000, many users prefer to keep their devices for longer, lengthening the replacement cycle.

As far as the top manufacturers of smartphones in Q4, nothing has changed dramatically since 2016. Samsung and Apple were on par in terms of market share in the last quarter of the year, while the Chinese brands Huawei, Xiaomi and OPPO stayed strong.

Gartner says that Huawei and Xiaomi are the only vendors with a growth of sales in q42017 compared with q42016. For the whole 2017, Samsung has a 20.9 percent share, followed by Apple with 14%. In the OS market, Google’s Android has the massive 85.9% share, iOS is at 14%, while other OS (including Windows phone) are insignificant with 0.1%.

Source