Gartner Smartphone Study Finds Device Sales Competition Heating Up

Gartner’s smartphone sales report for the 2016 fourth quarter shows Apple and Samsung remain the tops handset makers, but they are starting to face sales pressure from Chinese producers.

The smartphone market saw a strong end to 2016. According to Gartner, 431.5 million smartphones were sold during the period, up nearly 30 million units from the 403.1 million companies sold worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2015.

Apple nabbed the top spot in the fourth quarter, with 77 million iPhone sales. According to Gartner, Apple captured 17.9 percent market share, boosting its slice of the worldwide smartphone space by 0.2 percentage points. In the fourth quarter of 2015, Apple sold 71.5 million iPhones.

Samsung owned 20.7 percent of the smartphone market in the fourth quarter of 2015. But in the fourth quarter of 2016, the company’s total sales fell by nearly 7 million units to 76.8 million. Samsung’s market share fell to 17.8 percent, second place behind Apple.

Samsung’s problems during the fourth quarter were caused by the company’s decision to discontinue the Galaxy Note7, Gartner said. Samsung effectively left the big-screen smartphone market to Apple, allowing the iPhone maker to take the top spot.

China-based Huawei has proven to be one of the big growth stories on the year. In the fourth quarter of 2015, the company sold 32.1 million handsets worldwide and captured 8 percent market share. In the fourth quarter of 2016, its sales soared to 40.8 million units, giving Huawei 9.5 percent share. Its star likely will continue to rise.

Gartner reported that 1.5 billion smartphones were sold worldwide in 2016. That was up from the 1.4 billion smartphones customers purchased in 2015, according to the research firm’s data.

Although the Galaxy Note7 impacted Samsung’s fourth quarter, the company was still able to take the top spot for total smartphone sales in 2016. The company sold 306.4 million handsets on the year, earning it 20.5 percent share. However, that number was down from the 320.2 million Samsung sold in 2015.

It was a rough year for Apple, too. The iPhone maker saw a strong end to 2016, but its smartphone sales slid to 216.1 million on an annual basis. Apple sold 225.9 million iPhones in 2015. Apple’s 2016 market share stood at 14.4 percent, down from 15.9 percent in 2015.

Huawei’s strong fourth quarter was part of a broad trend for the China-based company last year. Huawei sold 132.8 million smartphones in 2016, up nearly 30 million units from the 104.1 million the company sold in 2015. Huawei’s market share jumped from 7.3 percent to 8.9 percent year over year.

In mobile operating systems, Gartner discovered that Android is tops, running on 352.7 million handsets at the end of 2016 and earning it 81.7 percent market share. That was up slightly from the 325.4 million Android devices sold at the end of 2015. Apple’s iOS came in a distant second with 17.9 percent share in 2016. Microsoft’s Windows mustered only 0.3 percent market share during the period.