Business InsiderBy Eugene Kim
The smartphone market had one of the best quarters ever, reaching near-record-high numbers during the April to June period. While premium brands like Apple are still growing nicely, hundreds of smaller, affordable brands continue to play an important role, accounting for almost half of the market share.
The market is led by Samsung and Apple, the two premium brands in the high-end smartphone category. But as the chart shows, non-premium brands selling affordable devices in emerging markets - looped in the "Others" category - took 45.2% of the total smartphone shipments last quarter, nearly double what the the market-leading Samsung accounted for.
"The overall growth of the smartphone market was not only driven by the success of premium flagship devices from Samsung, Apple, and others, but more importantly by the abundance of affordable handsets that continue to drive shipments in many key markets," Anthony Scarsella, Research Manager with IDC's Mobile Phone team, said in a statement.
It's also worth noting that Samsung lost over 3-percentage points in market share, while Apple, Huawei, and Xiaomi all saw incremental increases. The low-end, "Other" brands also slightly dropped its overall share.
The report stressed that while the Chinese smartphone manufacturers still lead in the non-premium market, IDC is seeing new brands join the market every quarter and is now tracking over 200 difference smartphone brands globally.
The smartphone market had one of the best quarters ever, reaching near-record-high numbers during the April to June period. While premium brands like Apple are still growing nicely, hundreds of smaller, affordable brands continue to play an important role, accounting for almost half of the market share.
According to data from the IDC, charted for us by Statista, the worldwide smartphone market had the second best quarter in history in terms of global shipments, reaching a total of 337.2 million units shipped worldwide. That's up 11.6% from the same quarter of last year.
The market is led by Samsung and Apple, the two premium brands in the high-end smartphone category. But as the chart shows, non-premium brands selling affordable devices in emerging markets - looped in the "Others" category - took 45.2% of the total smartphone shipments last quarter, nearly double what the the market-leading Samsung accounted for.
"The overall growth of the smartphone market was not only driven by the success of premium flagship devices from Samsung, Apple, and others, but more importantly by the abundance of affordable handsets that continue to drive shipments in many key markets," Anthony Scarsella, Research Manager with IDC's Mobile Phone team, said in a statement.
It's also worth noting that Samsung lost over 3-percentage points in market share, while Apple, Huawei, and Xiaomi all saw incremental increases. The low-end, "Other" brands also slightly dropped its overall share.
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The report stressed that while the Chinese smartphone manufacturers still lead in the non-premium market, IDC is seeing new brands join the market every quarter and is now tracking over 200 difference smartphone brands globally.
