KUALA LUMPUR: Global sales of smartphones increased 9.7% to 403 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015 over the same period in 2014, said Gartner, Inc.
Research director Anshul Gupta said low-cost smartphones in emerging markets and strong demand for premium smartphones continued to be the driving factors.
“The aggressive pricing of local and Chinese brands in the midrange and entry-level segments led to consumers upgrading more quickly to affordable smartphones,” he added in a statement on Friday.
He said during the quarter under review, Samsung and Huawei were the only two top-five smartphone vendors to increase sales, while Apple suffered its first decline.
“With an increase in sales of 53% in the fourth quarter of 2015, Huawei achieved the best performance year-over-year due to its increased brand visibility overseas.
“For total smartphones sales in 2015, Samsung maintained top spot. But, its market share dropped to 22.5% from 24.7% in 2014, followed by Apple, whose share was up to 15.9% from 15.4%. Huawei’s market share increased to 7.3% from 5.5%,” Anshul said
