For the first time in 2018, Global smartphone market sees a decline in sales

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Looking at the global smartphone trend in the market, 2018 has seen a decline for the first time in the global smartphone market. According to Counterpoint Research, reports suggest that there has been 4 per cent drop registered from 1,558.8 million unit shipments in 2017 to 1,498.3 million units in 2018.

The fourth quarter of smartphone shipment of 2018 showed a dip of 7 per cent making it the fifth consecutive quarter of smartphone decline.

Having a look at companies individually, Samsung had a 19 per cent share, followed by Apple and Huawei that have 14 per cent share globally, followed with 8 per cent by Xiaomi.

Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research said, "The decline in smartphone shipments can be attributed to lengthening replacement cycles in developed markets like US, China and Western Europe".

Despite smartphones, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) tried to push sales by adding features like full-screen display, Artificial Intelligence (AI), multiple camera assemblies as well as in-screen fingerprint scanners, the consumer market held on to their older devices despite groundbreaking breakthroughs in the smartphone industry along with high prices.

Chinese companies like Huawei, OPPO and Vivo went on to dominate in China, India, Asia and parts of Europe, but companies like Samsung and Apple saw tough times as flagship phones demand went down, thanks to affordable premium phones from Chinese makers.

Research Analyst Shobhit Srivastava said, "The collective smartphone shipment growth of emerging markets such as India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Russia and others was not enough to offset the decline in China, which was responsible for almost one-third of global smartphone shipments in 2018".

With immense growth in India, Xiaomi has reached a record fourth position for the full year and has managed to surpass OPPO globally.

The report said, "BBK Group that owns OPPO, Realme, Vivo and OnePlus brand is collectively the world's third largest manufacturer, even bigger than Huawei in terms of volume".

With a tiff in the market share, Huawei could surpass Apple to become the second largest brand globally in 2019, given that the US and China sort out the sanctions issue.

(With IANS inputs)