Samsung Marketshare Slips By 7% YoY in Q2; China Takes The Gains Home

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Samsung Galaxy

Samsung GalaxySamsung is the industry leader in smartphones and mobile phones in general. It’s market leadership position is in no threat whatsoever in a very long time. What’s happening is that it’s declining. And among the 5 global smartphone leaders, Samsung is the only one that experienced negative growth year on year. This is happening due to Chinese players gaining serious ground in local market China where mid range and entry level smartphones are concerned.

This is where the numbers get churned out and the Chinese vendors like Xiaomi, Lenovo and Huawei are making serious inroads in the local market. This is hurting Samsung in the end since the contribution of large markets like China and India is quite huge to the global numbers. Some of these players barely make 5% of their total smartphones sales outside China, like Lenovo which is currently fourth in global smartphone marketshare.
Top Five Smartphone Vendors, Shipments, and Market Share, 2014Q2 Preliminary Results (Units in Millions) 

Vendor
2Q14 Shipment Volume
2Q14 Market Share
2Q13 Shipment Volume
2Q13 Market Share
2Q14/2Q13 Growth
1. Samsung
74.3
25.2%
77.3
32.3%
-3.9%
2. Apple
35.1
11.9%
31.2
13.0%
12.4%
3. Huawei
20.3
6.9%
10.4
4.3%
95.1%
4. Lenovo
15.8
5.4%
11.4
4.7%
38.7%
5. LG
14.5
4.9%
12.1
5.0%
19.8%
Others
135.3
45.8%
97.5
40.6%
38.7%
Total
295.3
100%
240.0
100%
23.1%

 

The death of feature phones is arriving fast, and the playground now is entry level and mid-range smartphones where the Chinese players have hit with dirt cheap smartphones which also do have great features. This is of course Samsung’s worry. Apple is at a low as usual this time of year when there is much expectations of the next iPhone, but the company managed to sell better than they did last year same quarter. Among the top 5 only Samsung dropped with Huawei gaining the most, doubling shipments year on year and reporting quite good numbers from their side.

Whether Samsung recovers from this drop in Q3-Q4 as a result of the new smartphone range the Galaxy Alpha will remain to be seen but of course they are working towards redeeming themselves. IDC reports that smartphones shipments grew 23.1% year over year with shipments of 295.3 million smartphone shipments. IDC predicts that Q3 will be even higher with projections of hitting 300 million shipments which will be a record shipment for a quarter.