Samsung shipped 90 million more units than Apple last year
Yesterday was Apple’s earnings call and new data from IDC has revealed some interest data about the war for the top spot for smartphone manufacturers. Apple managed to edge Samsung out of the top spot for Q4 2016, with more than 800k shipments.
What’s interesting to note here is that’s a net change of -5.2% for Samsung when compared to the same quarter of the previous year. This just goes to show that despite no profit loss from the Note 7 disaster, the loss of shipments surrounding the Note 7 certainly affected the number of handsets Samsung was able to ship last year.
Despite Apple claiming the top spot for last quarter, Samsung still remains king of devices sold for the year of 2016 with about 96 million more devices sold last year compared to Apple.
What’s interesting to note from this chart is that both Apple and Samsung are down year-over-year, but Apple is down -7.0% compared to Samsung’s -3.0% (likely affected by the Note 7). The real growth can be seen in the Chinese competitors with OPPO and vivo both achieving more than 100% growth compared to the previous year. Huawei’s continued expansion served them the number three spot for the year of 2016.
The full IDC report makes mention that this is the first time Samsung’s market share has dropped below 20% in four straight years, which leaves ripe for speculation the reason. Likely a combination of the Note 7 disaster and the expansion of Chinese handsets into other markets have hampered Samsung’s growth efforts. Will they regain 20% market share in 2017?
[via 9to5 Google]