Samsung ships twice as many smartphones as Apple in Q1

Smartphone adoption is reaching a saturation point and global shipments fell 1.3% year on year and 18.6% down quarter on quarter, for a total of 292 million units. The info comes from global market research firm TrendForce.

Leader Samsung moved up the ladder, going up 5.7 percentage points in market share compared to Q1 last year. It shipped 81 million units, which is actually up quarter on quarter (usually, the holiday quarter, Q4, is the strongest).

Launching the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge earlier than competing flagships helped sales. The affordable J-series has found success in China as well as globally. TrendForce expects Samsung sales to continue going up.

Main rival Apple experienced a marked decline, going down 6.5 percentage points compared to the same period last year. Note that this is the quarter before the iPhone SE.

This means that Apple shipped only half as many smartphones as Samsung this quarter. The iPhone SE is expected to prop up Q2 sales until the iPhone 7 arrives.

LG's innovative work hasn't paid off. The company shipped a bit more than a year ago but declined compared to the previous quarter. It stays 6th globally.

Chinese companies weathered the storm quite well and their combined shipments went up, despite the global downturn. They shipped more in China than Samsung and Apple combined for the first time.

Demand was driven up by 4G adoption in China and growing smartphone sales in India. Even so, Q1 shipments dropped by 27 million units (20%) compared to Q4 last year.

Huawei maintains its home country lead and 3rd spot globally. However, TrendForce does not believe the company will be able to overtake Apple globally.

Lenovo pulled ahead of Xiaomi (they were on par Q1 last year) and shipped 17 million to Xiaomi's 16 million. Lenovo is committing a sizeable portion of its phones, 80%, to exports.

TCL (which you probably know as "Alcatel") is 4th, hot on the heels of Lenovo. Oppo and Vivo combined make up 20% of Chinese smartphone shipments. Vivo is less export-oriented than Lenovo with only 10% of production heading abroad.

Source