The third quarter of the year is usually when smartphone makers realize the mistakes they’d made in previous quarters in terms of the devices they released in the market and what they lacked. They then try to right these wrongs by either releasing newer devices or in instances where a device’s availability had been limited to a few markets, avail it in many more countries, while others make do with price cuts which in turn get more customers inside stores.
As such, it wouldn’t be that surprising to learn that Q3 2016 recorded the fastest growth rate in the smartphone industry so far this year but it actually is surprising.
The smartphone industry has been undergoing turbulence occasioned by saturation in key markets like China where demand for smartphones appears to have slowed down in the last one year. However, its increased focus on emerging smartphone markets and competitive pricing for entry-level and mid-range devices may have been its saving grace as shipments were up by 6% quarter over quarter.
375.4 million smartphone units were shipped in Q3 2016 compared to 354.2 million over a similar period last year.
With the arrival of new iPhones slated for early September, not many people were eager to buy the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus as they held out to see what Apple would bring to the market and the price reductions for older models of the iPhone that usually happen after such a launch. As such, Apple’s iOS platform lost market share while Google’s Android gained.
iOS market share stood at 12% in Q3 2016 after 45.5 million iOS devices were added into the global smartphone market. Android’s huge gains, which saw it gain 88% market share spelled doom for everyone else as smaller platforms like the Samsung-backed Tizen, BlackBerry OS which, it seems, has been abandoned by its owners, Microsoft’s Windows mobile and others only managed to account for under 0.5% market share.
Android’s huge gains, which saw it register 88% market share spelled doom for everyone else as smaller platforms like the Samsung-backed Tizen, BlackBerry OS which, it seems, has been abandoned by its owners, Microsoft’s Windows mobile and others only managed to account for under 0.5% market share.
Of the 375.4 million smartphones shipped in the last quarter, 328.6 million units were Android-based further underscoring the dominance of Google’s mobile operating system in a very connected world.
