IDC: Apple's iPhone sheds marketshare as smartphones out-ship feature phones for first time

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
According to market research firm IDC, worldwide smartphone shipments outpaced those of feature phones for the first time ever during the first quarter of 2013, while Apple's iPhone saw its marketshare dip to below 20 percent.

iPhone 5


Despite reporting a 6.6 percent year-over-year boost in sales for the first quarter of 2013, Apple's iPhone growth wasn't strong enough to fend off competing smartphone makers from gobbling up marketshare, data from the IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker shows.

During its quarterly earnings conference call for the second fiscal quarter of 2013, Apple reported iPhone sales of 37.4 million units, up from 35.1 million in the year prior, translating to a 6.6 percent rate of growth. According to IDC, the last time Apple's posted a year-over-year growth in the single-digits was in the third quarter of 2009.

At the end of quarter one, Apple's worldwide share of the smartphone market fell to 17.3 percent, down from 23 percent in 2012, but still good for second place behind Samsung. The Cupertino tech giant was the only top-five smartphone manufacturer to see its marketshare contract during the period.

Apple fared better when considering total mobile phone shipments, which include feature phones, as the iPhone's piece of the pie grew slightly to 8.9 percent, up from 8.7 percent in 2012.

Smartphone
Source: IDC


Worldwide leader Samsung grew its share of the smartphone market roughly 4 percent to 32.7 percent on shipments of 70.7 million units, up 60.7 percent from 44 million shipped units in the year-ago period. Total phone shipments reached 115 million, representing a 27.5 percent share of the total mobile phone market.

The biggest year-over-year change in smartphone shipments came from third-place vendor LG, which saw a 110.2 percent boost, from 4.9 million to 10.3 million units. The company's marketshare is still relatively small, however, with only 4.8 percent of the sector.

Rounding out the top five smartphone vendors was Huawei and ZTE, which saw shipments of 9.9 million and 9.1 million units accounting for 4.6. and 4.2 percent of the market, respectively.

Total
Source: IDC


Overall smartphone shipments reached 216.2 million units in the first quarter, or 51.6 percent of the 418.6 million total phones shipped.

"Phone users want computers in their pockets. The days where phones are used primarily to make phone calls and send text messages are quickly fading away," said IDC Senior Research Analyst with Kevin Restivo. "As a result, the balance of smartphone power has shifted to phone makers that are most dependent on smartphones."
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 71
    You KNOW how this thread will progress...
  • Reply 2 of 71
    poksipoksi Posts: 482member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post



    You KNOW how this thread will progress...


     


    To infinity and beyond :))

  • Reply 3 of 71
    Market share means nothing . Look at netbooks , boomed , all gone .
    The most important thing for Apple to do is profit profit and profit .
  • Reply 4 of 71
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post



    You KNOW how this thread will progress...


     


  • Reply 5 of 71
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    I can only assume out-ship is always followed after out-sold.
  • Reply 6 of 71
    512ke512ke Posts: 782member
    60% growth vs 6%?

    Shipped or not that's not good. Ouch.
  • Reply 7 of 71
    sensisensi Posts: 346member
    You KNOW how this thread will progress...
    Usually people start by shooting the messenger and dismissing the numbers, then comes the shipped vs sold fallacy, etc.

    512ke wrote: »
    60% growth vs 6%?
    That's rather +60% vs -6% market share growth, obviously not a pleasant trend. (edit: misread)
  • Reply 8 of 71
    monstrositymonstrosity Posts: 2,234member


    IDC... have they ever produced ANY trustworthy stats?? I think not.

  • Reply 9 of 71
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Sensi View Post





    Usually people start by shooting the messenger and dismissing the numbers, then comes the shipped vs sold fallacy, etc.

    That's rather +60% vs -6% market share growth, obviously not a pleasant trend.


    No its not, its + 60% vs +6% unit share growth. Still very bad though.


     


    As for other comments.


     


    1) Profit share is also falling, rather dramatically. It is a function of market share and margin, both dropping.


    2) Apple actually records shipments to channel as sales. The  stat - to customers - is sell through. And doesn't make the headlines.

  • Reply 10 of 71
    pedromartinspedromartins Posts: 1,333member


    ok, this data deserves a nice discussion.


     


    Apple reached the limit of what a premium 4" phone can do, and that's 4.5 billion profit per quarter (+-). If they want to earn marketshare to give more power to iOS, they need:


     


    a) a cheaper iPhone line (like macbook air and pro);


    b) a bigger screen iPhone to lure costumers away form samsung, htc and sony;


    c) both a) and b), my favourite. So 3 iphone lines.


     


    If they do not want to produce a newer cheaper iPhone, the price of the iPhone 4 has to drop at least 150 dollars. It's 3 years old, no matter how good. The iphone 4 costs 400 euros, the nexus 4? 300.


    They wouldn't go after the lower end to gain shitloads of money, no one gains money from that range, they would after it to give more power to iOS as a platform.


     


    A bigger screen iphone line should come too. Of course, some users here are stupid to understand that millions and millions find the 4" small, and are willing to pay a lot for a big screen and such iPhone line wouldn't have any impact (besides something great, like more power to iOS) to regular 4" iPhone users.


     


    Obviously, they can keep the current model, that has been working so well. But won't iOS suffer in the long run? Macs are the best computers, OSX the best OS, but they could be better with more marketshare, for what is worth.


     


    Apple can easily put iOS as the dominant OS for the next 10 years with 2 more iPhone lines. This, allied with the fact that income from the ecosystem is growing, is only good.


     


    I fail to see why they wouldn't do this. They have everything now. They could more than double the number of iPhones being sold and almost double the profit per quarter. Samsung will only slow down when ZTE and Huwai go up, and LG too. The Market is far from saturation!


     


    And please, do not talk about china mobile. That would be a temporary thing too...

  • Reply 11 of 71
    sensisensi Posts: 346member
    asdasd wrote: »
    No its not, its + 60% vs +6% unit share growth. Still very bad though.
    I was speaking of the year to year change in smartphone market share about Apple, first table:

    2012 Q1: 23%
    2013 Q1: 17.3%
    y to y = -5.7%

    What I completely misread was the Sammy one which is obviously not +60% but +3.9%
  • Reply 12 of 71
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    Where does IDC get their numbers for, for companies other than Apple? Are Samsung, LG, Nokia, etc. supplying them with data? Does IDC have a track record of being right? Here's what they said in March 2011:[INDENT]
    [I]
    Nokia's recent announcement to shift from Symbian to Windows Phone will have significant implications for the smartphone market going forward. "Up until the launch of Windows Phone 7 last year, Microsoft has steadily lost market share while other operating systems have brought forth new and appealing experiences," added Llamas. "The new alliance brings together Nokia's hardware capabilities and Windows Phone's differentiated platform. We expect the first devices to launch in 2012. By 2015, IDC expects Windows Phone to be number 2 operating system worldwide behind Android."
    [/I][/INDENT]
  • Reply 13 of 71
    timbittimbit Posts: 331member
    I think we are going to start seeing a dip in smartphone sales. Now that many people in the world have one (in countries with infrastructure and money) we will probably see a slowdown as people don't buy a new one every year. With phones lasting longer and of higher quality (in Apple's case anyway) people will hold into their phones and upgrade every 2 or 3 years, meaning less sales in general.
  • Reply 14 of 71
    How does IDC estimate shipments for anyone other than Apple?

    (Rogifan's comment preempts mine. I'll leave mine here though, in case some one missed his).
  • Reply 15 of 71
    igrivigriv Posts: 1,177member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post



    Where does IDC get their numbers for, for companies other than Apple? Are Samsung, LG, Nokia, etc. supplying them with data? Does IDC have a track record of being right? Here's what they said in March 2011:



    Nokia's recent announcement to shift from Symbian to Windows Phone will have significant implications for the smartphone market going forward. "Up until the launch of Windows Phone 7 last year, Microsoft has steadily lost market share while other operating systems have brought forth new and appealing experiences," added Llamas. "The new alliance brings together Nokia's hardware capabilities and Windows Phone's differentiated platform. We expect the first devices to launch in 2012. By 2015, IDC expects Windows Phone to be number 2 operating system worldwide behind Android."



     


    http://www.idc.com/about/methodology.jsp As for Windows phone, what's wrong with what they said? The first devices DID launch in 2012 and 2015 is not here yet.

  • Reply 16 of 71
    igriv wrote: »
    rogifan wrote: »
    Where does IDC get their numbers for, for companies other than Apple? Are Samsung, LG, Nokia, etc. supplying them with data? Does IDC have a track record of being right? Here's what they said in March 2011:
    <div class="bbcode_indent" style="margin-left:4em;">
    Nokia's recent announcement to shift from Symbian to Windows Phone will have significant implications for the smartphone market going forward. "Up until the launch of Windows Phone 7 last year, Microsoft has steadily lost market share while other operating systems have brought forth new and appealing experiences," added Llamas. "The new alliance brings together Nokia's hardware capabilities and Windows Phone's differentiated platform. We expect the first devices to launch in 2012. By 2015, IDC expects Windows Phone to be number 2 operating system worldwide behind Android."</div>

    http://www.idc.com/about/methodology.jsp As for Windows phone, what's wrong with what they said? The first devices DID launch in 2012 and 2015 is not here yet.

    Did you even bother to read the pap that passes off for an explanation of 'methodology' you linked to?

    Care to explain, based in your reading of it, how they estimate the numbers? If sampling, where are the error bands? Why and how do they confound actuals (Apple) with estimates (non-Apple)? Do they validate their estimates with actuals (using, e.g., Apple's data) and if so what are the results? If the validation is good, why do they use actuals rather than estimates for Apple?

    I could go on, but you get the idea....
  • Reply 17 of 71
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member


    IDC's future predictions are crap, for sure. But their present analysis is generally accepted, in fact Apple have used it in conference calls.

  • Reply 18 of 71
    asdasd wrote: »
    IDC's .......present analysis is generally accepted, in fact Apple have used it in conference calls.

    That means nothing necessarily in terms of accuracy or validity.
  • Reply 19 of 71

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post





    That means nothing necessarily in terms of accuracy or validity.


     


    Why would Apple would use likely inaccurate or invalid analyses in their conference calls? Obviously, if they're using this source in their own conference calls, they believe it's generally accurate/valid.

  • Reply 20 of 71
    gtrgtr Posts: 3,231member
    This just in:

    Ferrari are crap because they sold less units than Ford.

    [IMG ALT=""]http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/24108/width/350/height/700[/IMG]
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