Samsung’s phone sales are down six million units on this time last year, with Apple and Huawei — up 12m and 10m respectively — tearing into the Korean giant’s lead.
A report from Strategy Analytics shows that Samsung is still the world leader, enjoying 20.5pc of the global market, however, Apple and Huawei between them closed up by 7pc, with each now rising to 11pc and 7pc respectively.
Of course, despite sitting in second spot on the list, Apple remains the powerhouse when it comes to converting all these sales into profit, with the company’s premium-only model incredibly successful.
What’s striking, though, is that Huawei has overtaken Microsoft to land third spot, as the latter’s shipments almost halved in a year.
Huawei’s rise is coming all over the world, with its 4G models doing particularly well in China.
Strategy Analytics’ Q2 phone results
“Samsung has stabilised volumes in the high-end, but its lower-tier mobile phones continue to face intense competition from rivals such as Huawei in Asia,” explained Woody Oh, director of Strategy Analytics.
“Apple outperformed as consumers in China and elsewhere upgraded to bigger-screen iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models.”
Microsoft’s tale of woe
Microsoft went from 50.3m units shipped in Q2 ’14, to 27.8m units in Q2 ’15, with Xiaomi even closing in on fourth in the table, clocking up almost 20m units itself.
Microsoft’s 6pc market share is near its all-time low, according to the report, with the release of Windows 10 this week meaning its Lumia devices have been in a state of stasis for a few months.
Surprisingly, Xiaomi’s impressive rise to nearly 5pc of the world’s market share is not seen as too much of a positive, with Strategy Analytics’ Neil Mawston wary of increased competition at the lower end of the smartphone market.
“Xiaomi remains a major player in the China mobile phone market, but its local and international growth is slowing and Xiaomi is facing intense competition from Huawei, Meizu and others,” he says.
“As a result, Xiaomi may struggle to hold onto its top-five global mobile phone ranking in the coming quarters.”
Main image via Shutterstock
