IDC's latest Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report is out, and it provides a glimpse at manufacturer market share around the globe. The research firm found that 281.5 million smartphones were shipped globally during the quarter, up 28.6 percent from the same quarter last year when vendors shipped 218.8 million smartphone units. The figure is down 2.8 percent from last quarter, however.
"The face of the smartphone market is changing rapidly to reflect the rise of its largest market, China, where a record 40 percent of the smartphones shipped worldwide in 1Q14 were bound to Chinese consumers," IDC senior research manager Melissa Chau said. Shipments in China jumped thanks to a new TD-LTE network and China Mobile's iPhone launch. Apple's share is still on the decline as Chinese vendors Huawei and Lenovo continue to grab larger slices of the market, and while Samsung's market share slipped a bit year-on-year, it's still the king.
Samsung shipped 85 million smartphone units during Q1 2014 for a 30.2 percent share of the market. Its market share dipped a hair from the first quarter of last year when it had a 31.9 percent share of the market, but was up from last quarter when its market share was 28.8 percent. Meanwhile, Apple shipped 43.7 million units during the first quarter, giving it a 15.5 percent share of the market.
That's down from 17.1 percent in the year-ago quarter and down from 17.9 percent last quarter. Huawei shipped 13.7 million units for a 4.9 percent market share, up from 4.3 percent a year ago, and Lenovo shipped 12.9 million units for a 4.6 percent share, up from 3.6 percent a year ago. LG moved 12.3 million smartphones for a 4.4 percent, down from 4.7 percent in Q1 2013.
While Apple's market share is down, its first quarter shipments were a record for the firm. "The company saw double-digit growth in Japan as well as across multiple developing markets, including Brazil, China, India and Indonesia," IDC said. "Still, this made for the lowest year-over-year improvement among the leading vendors."
As you may have noticed, Samsung shipped more smartphones than its closest competitors combined. IDC said it was bolstered by its high-end smartphones in addition to its "deep selection of entry and mid-range models in emerging markets," which explains why we see firms like Motorola Mobility (now owned by Lenovo) and HTC putting new efforts into those mid-range and low-end spaces.
IDC said it expects smartphone vendors tos hip a total of 1.2 billion smartphones in 2014.
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