Global smartphone sales grew 6.7 percent to 366 million units in the second quarter of 2017, reveals a new report by Gartner. While that is a decent year-on-year growth, sales have declined if compared to the first quarter of this year. In Q1, smartphones sales had increased by nine percent. While the overall market is expected to be flat this year, whatever quarterly growth has happened seems to be the result of strong demand for 4G handsets in emerging markets like India, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia. These regions accounted for nearly half the sales in Q2 2017.
A smartphone revolution is sweeping across these markets which boast a huge population that is hungry for affordable but well-equipped smartphones. "Although demand for utility smartphones remains strong, there is growing demand in emerging markets for 4G smartphones, with more storage, better processors and more advanced cameras. This is translating into higher demand for mid-priced [$150 to $200] smartphones," Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner, said in a statement. ALSO READ: Worldwide device shipments to decline 0.3 percent this year: Gartner
Asia continues to be the biggest buyer of smartphones in the world, most of it coming from the Greater China (GC) region. Despite a five percent yearly decline in market share, GC accounted for nearly 28 percent of all smartphones sold in Q2 2017. Most of this growth was fueled by the stunning rise of China's domestic handset-makers such as Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and others. Vivo and Oppo scored the highest in the second quarter, growing their year-on-year sales by 71 percent and 44 percent respectively. Both brands are owned by China's BBK Electronics (which also manufactures OnePlus).
Android continued to rule the smartphone universe accounting for 87.7 percent of devices sold, while iOS' share stood at 12.1 percent. Apple's sales were flat (down 0.2 percent) year-on-year but Samsung grew its sales by 7.5 percent riding on the success of the Galaxy S8 and S8+. Analysts expect Samsung to register further growth in the upcoming quarters. Apple too is likely to benefit from the roll out of iOS 11. "The new iOS 11, which will include augmented reality, machine learning, an improved Siri and a new display design, will likely fuel strong iPhone sales in the fourth quarter of 2017," Gupta added. ALSO READ: Oppo, Vivo and other Chinese smartphone brands are slowly taking over the world
However, Gartner sounds a word of caution. Sales could further slow down in China as upgrade cycles get lengthier. While large vendors like Huawei, Oppo and Vivo are gaining ground globally, smaller brands like Sony and HTC are nearly being obliterated. There's also concern over rising component costs, as well as their limited supply. A shortage of flash memory and OLED displays is likely to affect premium smartphone supply in Q3 and Q4 of 2017. "We've already seen Huawei's P10 suffer from a flash memory shortage," Gartner stated.
Published: August 22, 2017 5:50 PM IST | Updated: August 22, 2017 7:58 PM ISTSource: Smartphone sales grew 6.7% in Q2 riding on 4G demand in India, Indonesia: Gartner
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