Chinese smartphone vendors — Huawei, Oppo and BBK Communication — increased their sales and market share during the third quarter of 2016, according to Gartner.
Huawei, Oppo and BBK Communication Equipment accounted for 21 percent of the smartphones sold to end users worldwide in the third quarter of 2016.
Sales of smartphones in China grew 12.4 percent. Oppo and BBK Communication Equipment fully utilized the China smartphone growth. 81 percent of Oppo’s smartphone sales came from China, while BBK accounted for 89 percent of smartphones sales in China. Oppo and BBK grew strongly in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Russia.
Global sales of smartphones to end users grew 5.4 percent to 373 million units in the third quarter of 2016. However, overall sales of mobile phones dropped 1.3 percent, due to the declining popularity of feature phones.
The battery problem that caused some Galaxy Note 7 smartphones to catch fire led to lower sales of Samsung’s Note products. Samsung’s smartphone sales fell 14.2 percent. Samsung’s previous worst performance for smartphone sales was a 12.3 percent drop in the fourth quarter of 2014.
“The decision to withdraw the Galaxy Note 7 was correct, but the damage to Samsung’s brand will make it harder for the company to increase its smartphone sales in the short term,” said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner.
It’s crucial for Samsung to launch Galaxy S8 smartphones successfully in order to regain trust from partners and customers.
Apple’s iPhone sales fell 6.6 percent accounting for 11.5 percent of the smartphone market. Apple’s sales fell 8.5 percent in the U.S. and 31 percent in China.
Huawei is closing the gap with Apple. The difference in smartphone market share between Apple and Huawei was less than three percentage.
