iPhone's global marketshare falls to 15.3% in March quarter amid tough Chinese competition
During the March quarter Apple's iPhone remained firmly in second place in global smartphone marketshare, but saw a significant drop year-over-year to 15.3 percent, ceding some ground to up-and-coming Chinese vendors.
Apple slipped from 18.3 percent in the March 2015 quarter, IDC said in a research report published on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Apple reported iPhone shipments dropping by nearly 10 million units, marking the first ever year-over-year decline in that segment.
Leading the pack in the global market was Samsung, which dipped from 82.4 million units to 81.9 million, lowering its marketshare just a tenth of a point to 24.5 percent.
China's Huawei, however, jumped from a 5.2 percent marketshare to 8.2 percent, shipping 27.5 million phones. Similar gains were seen at two of the company's local rivals, Oppo and Vivo, with the former growing from a 2.2 percent share to 5.5 percent. Vivo advanced from 1.9 percent to 4.3 percent, despite having little presence outside of China.
IDC speculated that Apple's shipments may have been impacted by iPhone 6 and 6 Plus owners having little interest in 6s models. While the 6s has improvements like a faster processor, a better camera, and 3D Touch, these are incremental upgrades, which may be prompting people to wait for an "iPhone 7" expected to ship later this year.
Apple slipped from 18.3 percent in the March 2015 quarter, IDC said in a research report published on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Apple reported iPhone shipments dropping by nearly 10 million units, marking the first ever year-over-year decline in that segment.
Leading the pack in the global market was Samsung, which dipped from 82.4 million units to 81.9 million, lowering its marketshare just a tenth of a point to 24.5 percent.
China's Huawei, however, jumped from a 5.2 percent marketshare to 8.2 percent, shipping 27.5 million phones. Similar gains were seen at two of the company's local rivals, Oppo and Vivo, with the former growing from a 2.2 percent share to 5.5 percent. Vivo advanced from 1.9 percent to 4.3 percent, despite having little presence outside of China.
IDC speculated that Apple's shipments may have been impacted by iPhone 6 and 6 Plus owners having little interest in 6s models. While the 6s has improvements like a faster processor, a better camera, and 3D Touch, these are incremental upgrades, which may be prompting people to wait for an "iPhone 7" expected to ship later this year.
Comments
Here is your quote from the recent topic that seems to contradict to what you just said.
So what's more important? Selling LESS devices for GREATER profit (what Apple has been doing)?
Or selling MORE devices with LITTLE profit and make more money from the services (what Google has been doing)?
At the end more devices means more service exposure, right?
Although I think that part of the issue this year was that the biggest selling feature was 3D Touch which as of yet has proven a bit of a lame duck.
It's a fantastic phone, I own one. But I can see how strong releases from competitors have been able to put a dent in their lead this year.
Come on Apple, your products are not that diverse as Samsung or other brands. Concentrate and make the best again. Listen to your loyal user base and bring more ports to your MacBooks. Aesthetics are important but so does workability. How ugly is a MacBook with adaptors.
I hope WWDC will bring some innovation again and the iPhone 7 mind blowing. Cheers.
Stick to your spyware knockoffs if it makes you happy.
I'm kind of fracking tired of dumbass headlines; it's like headlines for low info readers.
Yes, Apple has lots of competition and needs to respond to it but 90% this narrative is bunk.
The media now invents much more "news" than they report.
Point is; these People all have 'those' phones in their pockets now. Not an iPhone.
Well, except for the sales Apple didn't get when these people bought their Samsung/HTC/Sony/LG phone.
Huh? - One must own the device to know they don't want it or it wont work for their needs?
I agree, IF I needed many accessory's ---this one port to rule them all / Apple dongle is a fiasco. However, Apple knows(or thinks it knows) 80% of the users don't care its one port(although I think they are wrong on this number, like when the Air added ports too).
I also have a 2015 MacBook and have absolutely not been impacted with the single USB-C port. I love that laptop. Is it the right laptop for everyone? Nope. But I bet 90% of the laptop using public would do great with it.
Don't be obtuse, you know exactly what he's talking about. All the iMacs still have hard disks as standard. It's completely mad that "premium" machines with a price of £1,850 still have a HDD, with an SSD still an added extra. It's like buying a top of the range BMW and it coming with cheap £40 steel wheels. The 24" iMacs have soldered RAM too, which is unnecessary; due to Ive's OCD over thickness.
People are willing to pay extra for a premium product, but when they feel ripped off they won't hesitate to go elsewhere, especially with Windows becoming (marginally) better. I think Macs are great, but their value is certainly nowhere near what it used to be, especially since the switch to x86 means direct comparisons price and spec wise are possible. I guess also Apple doesn't have much faith in their products seeing how they still only offer a one year warranty as standard.
(Not) sorry (at all) to burst your bubble, but our dutch friend is spot on. The iMac is a cool screen with parity laptop components, and the Macbook is a glamorous facebook machine that stretches the physical boundaries of device thinness. Both underpowered and un-upgradeable. Macs were beasts until just recently. They were mostly used for graphics and video editing for a reason. Nowadays, however, Apple seems to be falling into the trap that design is only about aesthetics -and rose gold.
And yes, sog35, hjmnl is obviously a (disgruntled) Apple fan and so am I. Dissenting views must be causing serious beachballs inside your one track mind.
Luckily Apple is not running behind for its iOS based devices, but the competition is sitting on Apple's heels. Let's hope that the iPhone7 will be really good
The smartphone is no different from every other piece of technology. is subject to the same laws as every other piece of new technology. When they are first introduced, the price is high and the number of companies capable of offering quality products are few because the expertise required to design and manufacture them is scarce and in many instances the necessary components are sparse. Over time - and the iPhone has been around for 9 years - the know how becomes much more common and the parts even more so, to the point where teenagers are now building smartphones using Raspberry Pi kits. That's why where an Apple computer once cost $3000 in today's money, a Mac Mini can be had for $500 and a MacBook Air for not much more. The iPod Shuffle went from $150 to $50 in less time than the iPhone has been on the market. The DVD player that used to cost over $500 now costs $30. And HDTVs have astoundingly dropped from $8000 to as little as $200 in less than 15 years.
Incidentally, one reason why more companies than Apple are now capable of making quality smartphones: the competition has been poaching Apple talent (current and former) for years. Mostly mid-level guys, sure, but every now and then an upper level person too. Huawei's devices got better right after they hired Abigail Baker, for example. But it hasn't all been in one direction. Perhaps the best recognition that the competition is also making good products is Apple has been hiring their talent also and has been for years: here and here and here.
As for making zero profits: it is curious. The only smartphone manufacturer to leave the business or go bankrupt in all this time (not counting Motorola who had been in trouble long before the iPhone) was Nokia, the only one not to adopt Android! The only two companies that have consistently lost money the past several years are HTC and Sony. Sony's problem is longtime mismanagement, which afflicts more than merely their mobile division, HTC's is simply being too small to compete in advertising, R&D and supply chain. The rest either do in fact make "small" profits of several hundred million to a billion a year, or are willing to break even or actually take a small loss because they use their smartphones to push other products and services. LG for instance states that their smartphones helps them sell HDTVs and audio hardware. Xiaomi and Huawei bundle their smartphones with broadband, mobile and streaming services. That's why not only are there no Android device makers going broke or exiting the market - though Dell it seems is slowly dropping Android to go all in on Windows 10 for their tablets and hybrids - but rather more new companies enter the market with devices each year.
So you can believe what you choose, but only because you very badly, desperately want to believe that the iPhone is the one product in the world that only a single company can make well and earn a profit doing so.