Releasing its worldwide smartphone market share results for the fourth quarter of 2019, analyst firm Gartner also reported that while Samsung maintained the No. 1 position globally in Q4 of 2019, in Australia, however, it comes in second behind Apple.
The results also show that:
- After four consecutive quarters of decline, Apple’s iPhone sales globally returned to growth, with an increase of 7.8% in the Q4 of 2019.
- Huawei experienced the highest growth globally in 2019 with an overall annual increase of 18.6%. This helped it secure the No. 2 spot for the year, ahead of Apple. In Australia, however, growth declined in 2019 by 26.8%, placing it in 4th spot.
- While facing an extended ban from the US, Huawei aggressively pursued its smartphone strategy in China, where it grew its market share by 37% in 2019.
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“However, India, which sold 151.9 million units, overtook the US to become the No. 2 country for smartphone sales in 2019. China maintained the lead, with sales of 390.8 million smartphones over the full year.”
Gartner says that Apple and Xiaomi were the only vendors in the top five to achieve growth in the fourth quarter of 2019, and even with a decline in sales, Samsung held on to the No. 1 position with 17.3% market share, while Apple secured the No. 2 position with 17.1% of the market.
After four consecutive quarters of decline, Apple’s iPhone sales returned to growth, with an increase of 7.8% in the fourth quarter.
And despite a small (0.5%) year-over-year contraction in its smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2019, Samsung increased its full-year sales by 0.4% to 296.2 million units.
“A slight lowering of the prices of the iPhone 11 series, compared with the iPhone XR, and other price reductions for previous-generation iPhone models, increased demand. It also helped Apple regain the No. 2 position,” said Annette Zimmermann, research vice president at Gartner.
Sales of iPhones were particularly strong in China, where they grew by 39% in the fourth quarter. Apple also performed strongly in certain mature and developing markets, such as the U.K., France, Germany, Brazil and India.
Gartner analysts expect Apple will launch its first 5G smartphone in the third quarter of 2020. This will encourage users to upgrade in countries where 5G network services are available.
Xiaomi’s smartphone sales totalled 32.4 million units in the fourth quarter of 2019 — a 16.5% increase, year over year. “This strong performance enabled Xiaomi to overtake OPPO and take the No. 4 spot,” said Gupta.
“The price and performance of Redmi models drove Xiaomi’s smartphone sales growth, and the company did particularly well in emerging Asia/Pacific.”
Data tables: courtesy Gartner
