iPhone sales surge in Q1 on strong China, emerging market performance

Posted:
in iPhone edited May 2015
Echoing findings from IDC earlier this month, market research firm Gartner this week estimated global iPhone sales hit 60.2 million units for the first quarter of 2015, in large part thanks to a surge in China.




According to Gartner's latest data, Apple's 60.2 million worldwide unit sales amounted to 17.9 percent of the market, putting the company in second place behind Samsung. The Korean tech giant moved 81.1 million handsets for a 24.2-percent marketshare, down from 30.4 percent in 2014.

Compared to the same time last year, Apple grew its slice of the global smartphone pie 2.6 percent on an unseasonably strong performance in China, where iPhone surpassed Xiaomi's offerings to become the top-selling device for the first time ever. During the first quarter, iPhone sales grew 72.5 percent in Greater China, making the region Apple's largest volume market ahead of North America.

"Apple's extension into more Asian markets helped it close the gap with Samsung globally," said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. "In the same period last year, there was a difference of more than 40 million units with Samsung; this difference has been halved, within one year, to just over 20 million units."

Samsung's lackluster performance contributed to a 1.9-percent slip in Android's hold on the market. Apple's iOS, on the other hand, enjoyed continued growth for the third consecutive quarter after a hugely successful iPhone 6 launch. Microsoft's Windows Phone platform and BlackBerry both dropped 0.2 percent over the same period.




Earlier in May, researchers at IDC found similar growth in Asian iPhone uptake despite seeing a contraction in the Chinese smartphone market. IDC was slightly more conservative with its iPhone numbers, pegging Apple's China growth at 62.1 percent year over year.

Gartner saw an uptick in overall smartphone sales with numbers jumping from 281.6 million devices sold in the first quarter of 2014 to 336 million this year. The firm associated the sector's strong performance with boosted sales in emerging markets across Asia/Pacific (excluding China), Eastern Europe and the Middle East and North Africa.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 11
    larryalarrya Posts: 606member
    Super useful research when "Others" is bigger than Apple and Samsung combined.
  • Reply 2 of 11
    The real market share numbers should be on a $ in sales rather than 1 unit sold. Dropping your price to increase market share only works if you are the dominate player with current control over the market. There is no dominate player in unit sales. There are dozens of companies selling Android and Android knock off phones. There are no advantages for these companies except for price, brand prestige, and design specs(all of which cost money to add to their products). The average price for an iPhone is 2.7 times higher than an Android phone. This means that Apple actually has 37% of the market share with $687 average selling price. Samsung, if it is an average seller of Android phones, has only 18% of the market share and the rest of Android has 42%. If the average price of a Samsung phone is below $254 which is the number listed by Forbes as the current average selling price for an Android phone then they are even lower down in market share.

    Needless to say the market share that Apple holds in phones priced over $500 is north of 50% and perhaps north of 60%. Those are world wide numbers and yes I just used the time honored analyst technique called a wag, or wild ass guess. I bet mine is closer than theirs!
  • Reply 3 of 11
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    larrya wrote: »
    Super useful research when "Others" is bigger than Apple and Samsung combined.

    You have to wonder if most of the 'other' even qualify as a smart phone in the sense an iPhone is! What the data does show is most of 'other' is running some form of Android. I hate to imagine what version. Of course if 'other' didn't qualify then Android OS (as used on phones that did qualify) would not be in the lead by very much at all. But then Gartner et al probably wouldn't get their monthly checks.
  • Reply 4 of 11
    cloudgazercloudgazer Posts: 2,161member
    Gartner didn't estimate Apple's Q1 iPhone sales at 60.2million, Apple reported iPhone sales of 60.2 million (shipments of 61.2 million and a channel inventory increase of 1 million). One could I suppose say that Gartner calculated the number, but that seems a grandiose term for subtracting 1 from 61.2.

    All the other numbers on that report may be estimates, but that one is hard data, and month old hard data at that.
  • Reply 5 of 11
    konqerrorkonqerror Posts: 685member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by LarryA View Post



    Super useful research when "Others" is bigger than Apple and Samsung combined.

     

    Nothing wrong with the research. They listed the top 5, anything else is smaller than 4.6%. This is called a "long tail". Fault of the market, not the researcher.

  • Reply 6 of 11
    cloudgazercloudgazer Posts: 2,161member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by konqerror View Post

     

     

    Nothing wrong with the research. They listed the top 5, anything else is smaller than 4.6%. This is called a "long tail". Fault of the market, not the researcher.


     

    Um

     

    http://fortune.com/2014/07/28/pc-sales-estimates-how-the-sausage-gets-made/

     

    “So, the mantra became, preserve the growth rates; to hell with the actual numbers. Even the growth rates are fiction. The fudge is in the “others” category, which is used as a plug to make the numbers work out"

     

    This is regarding IDC's PC numbers but it's hard to imagine that the smartphone numbers are any better, or that Gartner is substantially more rigorous.

  • Reply 7 of 11
    bestkeptsecretbestkeptsecret Posts: 4,265member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post

     

     

    Um

     

    http://fortune.com/2014/07/28/pc-sales-estimates-how-the-sausage-gets-made/

     

    “So, the mantra became, preserve the growth rates; to hell with the actual numbers. Even the growth rates are fiction. The fudge is in the “others” category, which is used as a plug to make the numbers work out"

     

    This is regarding IDC's PC numbers but it's hard to imagine that the smartphone numbers are any better, or that Gartner is substantially more rigorous.




    OT, welcome back. IIRC, you had some very informative posts and then you suddenly just dropped off. I was wondering where you went!

  • Reply 8 of 11
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Macnewsjunkie View Post



    The real market share numbers should be on a $ in sales rather than 1 unit sold. Dropping your price to increase market share only works if you are the dominate player with current control over the market. There is no dominate player in unit sales. There are dozens of companies selling Android and Android knock off phones. There are no advantages for these companies except for price, brand prestige, and design specs(all of which cost money to add to their products). The average price for an iPhone is 2.7 times higher than an Android phone. This means that Apple actually has 37% of the market share with $687 average selling price. Samsung, if it is an average seller of Android phones, has only 18% of the market share and the rest of Android has 42%. If the average price of a Samsung phone is below $254 which is the number listed by Forbes as the current average selling price for an Android phone then they are even lower down in market share.



    Needless to say the market share that Apple holds in phones priced over $500 is north of 50% and perhaps north of 60%. Those are world wide numbers and yes I just used the time honored analyst technique called a wag, or wild ass guess. I bet mine is closer than theirs!



    One would think total revenue would be more important than units sold but Wall Street simply doesn't think that way.  I would think the winner would be the company that makes the most money regardless of the number of units sold because that's what matters.  That company would also seem to be more efficient.  If one company sells a thousand units of something and makes $100 and another company sells 500 units and makes $500, it's easy enough to see the latter company is coming out ahead.  Way, way ahead.  So I don't quite understand why Wall Street continues to use units sold as their most heavily weighted metric.  It's just silly.  Apple shareholders are always going to get screwed by Wall Street because Apple isn't mainly concerned with over unit sales, just profits.  Why would investors be interested in high unit sales if revenue is low?  Apple's market cap is nearly twice Microsoft's market cap yet Wall Street gives Microsoft a higher premium (P/E) by a few points.  WTF!  Does that make any sort of sense whatsoever.  What exactly does Wall Street base this premium on?

  • Reply 9 of 11
    calicali Posts: 3,494member
    The real market share numbers should be on a $ in sales rather than 1 unit sold. Dropping your price to increase market share only works if you are the dominate player with current control over the market. There is no dominate player in unit sales. There are dozens of companies selling Android and Android knock off phones. There are no advantages for these companies except for price, brand prestige, and design specs(all of which cost money to add to their products). The average price for an iPhone is 2.7 times higher than an Android phone. This means that Apple actually has 37% of the market share with $687 average selling price. Samsung, if it is an average seller of Android phones, has only 18% of the market share and the rest of Android has 42%. If the average price of a Samsung phone is below $254 which is the number listed by Forbes as the current average selling price for an Android phone then they are even lower down in market share.

    ALL Android phones are knock offs.

    Give no mercy to these manufacturers who blatantly ripped off iPhone and iOS.

    I'm disgusted by the tolerance of the younger generation who don't see this. If we don't call it what it is we will see more and more people(especially fandroids) who think an android is just as original and comparable to an iPhone.
  • Reply 10 of 11
    croprcropr Posts: 1,122member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cali View Post





    ALL Android phones are knock offs.



    Give no mercy to these manufacturers who blatantly ripped off iPhone and iOS.



    I'm disgusted by the tolerance of the younger generation who don't see this. If we don't call it what it is we will see more and more people(especially fandroids) who think an android is just as original and comparable to an iPhone.



    It is an illusion to think that there is a single product in the tech world that started from a clean white piece of paper.  To make its first iPhone Apple copied a lot of existing technologies and ideas, invented by others.  That is not a shame, but it should not denied neither.  Innovation  is successfully  combining existing technologies into something new. Apple did that and Google did that with Android (but to a lesser extent).  There are a dozen of features that first are available on Android and that are afterwards copied by Apple.  Google Now versus Siri is a typical example

     

    If you insist on saying that all Android phone are knock offs, then you'd better have a look at the Alcatel webtouch,  a touch based smartphone which was launched in 1999. One can only conclude that an iPhone is also a knock off.

  • Reply 11 of 11
    cali wrote: »
    ALL Android phones are knock offs.

    Give no mercy to these manufacturers who blatantly ripped off iPhone and iOS.

    I'm disgusted by the tolerance of the younger generation who don't see this. If we don't call it what it is we will see more and more people(especially fandroids) who think an android is just as original and comparable to an iPhone.
    My comment was meant to avoid argument not be a definitive description.
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