By EDD K. USMAN
Twitter: @edd1819, Instagram: @bluestar0910, Facebook: Science, Digital & Current Affair
(SDN) — HERE is Gartner’s Top 5 smartphone vendors in the world: Samsung, Huawei, Apple, Xiaomi, and OPPO.
The ranking is for Gartner, Inc.’s 3rd quarter of 2019 (3Q19).
Unsurprisingly, as in previous instances of the survey, three of the five top-selling phones are of Chinese origin — Huawei, Xiaomi, and OPPO.
While South Korea’s Samsung maintained its long-standing position at the top of the heap, China’s Huawei, while remaining second, had also registered a double-digit sales growth, even while 3Q19 recorded a slowing smartphone market.
“Huawei was the only one of the top-five global smartphone vendors to achieve a double-digit growth in smartphone sales in the third quarter of 2019. The company sold 65.8 million smartphones, an increase of 26%, year over year.
“Huawei’s performance in China was the key driver of its global smartphone sales growth. It sold 40.5 million smartphones in China and increased its share of the country’s market by almost 15 percentage points,” Gartner, the leading research and advisory firm in the world, pointed out.
For 3Q19, smartphone lovers bought 79,056.7 Samsung units; 65,822 units of Huawei; 40,833 units for Apple; 32,271.3 units, Xiaomi; and 30,834.4 units of OPPO.
Smartphone sells of other manufacturers were lumped together in the 138,659.9 units purchased.
Each of the top five’s share in the 3Q19 global market were 20.4 percent, Samsung; 17.0 percent, Huawei; 10.5 percent, Apple; 8.3 percent, Xiaomi; and 8.0 percent, OPPO.
Gartner noted the continuing decline of smartphones’ global sales to end users in 3Q19, contracting by 0.4 percent in relation with third quarter of 2018 (3Q18).
The research and advisory firm also took note of the shift of users’ preference for smartphones.
Samsung focuses on mid-tier and entry-level smartphones
“For the majority of smartphone users, desire has shifted away from owning the least expensive smartphone. Today’s smartphone user is opting for mid-tier smartphones over premium-tier ones because they offer better value for money,” Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner, said.
“In addition, while waiting for 5G network coverage to increase to more countries, smartphone users are delaying their purchase decisions until 2020.”
This waiting game resulted in brands such as Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo to go more vigorously for entry-level and mid-tier portfolios.
The strategy that Huawei, Samsung, and OPPO employed helped them grow in 3Q19.
“By contrast, Apple recorded another double-digit decline in sales, year over year,” Gartner noted.
No. 1 Samsung, on the other hand, maintained is foothold on the top position worldwide as it increased its sales by 7.8 percent year over year.
“Samsung’s aggressive revamp of its portfolio, with a focus on mid-tier and entry-level segments, strengthened its competitive position,” Gupta observed.
Meanwhile, strategies that Apple employed to stop its sales decline globally appeared ineffective.
“Although Apple continued its sales promotions and discounts in various markets, this was not enough to stimulate demand globally. In the Greater China market sales of iPhones continued to improve.
“However, it follows a double-digit decline recorded at the beginning of the year. The iPhone 11, 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max saw a good initial adoption, which suggests that sales may be positive in the remaining quarter,” he said.
Huawei defying American government blacklist
Gartner predicted a rise in competition in the world smartphone market between manufacturers in coming up with “more intelligent smartphones” that will provide “increasingly personalized content and services that draw on users’ contexts and preferences.”
“To deliver relevant personalized experiences, manufacturers will need to improve the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in smartphones and make security capabilities and privacy key aspects of their brands,” Roberta Cozza, senior research director at Gartner, forecasted.
The research and advisory company suggested to phone manufacturers to “focus on offering attractive features at low prices as quickly as possible.”
Huawei achieved its double-digit sales growth despite the United States blacklist or ban which, apparently, is not yet biting much because of extensions for American tech companies to do business with the Chinese company, the global number in telecoms equipment sales. (SDN)
Featured image of Gartner, Inc. from its blog website.