Apple has been having a less than stellar time in the smartphone segment, which is no surprise considering the company lost almost 9 million in sales last quarter compared to a year ago. Now, Gartner is reporting that owing to missed sales targets and the rise of Chinese companies, Apple was hurt as far as its dominant market share is concerned.
Last quarter, Cupertino managed to gain on 14.8 percent of the market, selling 51.6 million smartphones. That was down a massive 3.1 percent of the previous year, when it sold 60.1 million devices worldwide.
China it seemed made the most out of the ailing fortunes of the ailing giant. Huawei upped its share by almost the same amount, from just 5.4 percent to 8.3 percent of the market, totaling 28.8 million in sales. If it continues at the same rate, it could seriously threaten Apple’s second spot.
Oppo also made deeper inroads, more than doubling from 2 to 4.6 percent market share, reaching 16.1 million in sales. Xiaomi for one lost its share slightly, but upped its sales from 14.7 to 15.04 million units.
It’s worth noting that it wasn’t only Apple which seemed to have seen the top. Samsung’s sales have also been fairly stagnant over the past year, reaching 81.186 million devices, from 81.122 million devices of the same time last year, indicating that it might have to add additional markets, marketing and/or products to its lineup in the future.
According to Gartner, the overall growth of the market had been mainly due to the sale of entry-level phones with lucrative 4G plans. With Apple now already trying to reach (with varying degrees of success) with the iPhone SE, the segment might be in for a bloody showdown.
