Global Smartphone Sales Fall for the First Time Ever

For the first time ever smartphone sales fell overall in the Q4 of 2017. Research and advisory company Gartner started tracking the global smartphone market in 2004. Each passing year faced smartphone sales increase or decrease. Global Smartphone Sales Fall for the First Time Ever.

In last quarter of 2016, about 432 million units of smartphone sold. While in Q4 2017 there were only approximately 408 million units sold. Which is a drop of about 5.6 percent.

Global Smartphone Sales Fall for the First Time Ever

Gartner gave two theories for the drop, the one is upgrades from feature phones to smartphones have slowed, and the other one is people are keeping their current smartphones longer than they used to.

According to Gartner:

According to Gartner, Samsung increased its market share from 17.8 percent to 18.2 percent, putting it in a clear lead ahead of rival Apple. Last year, both companies were neck-and-neck, with Samsung only ahead of Apple by about 700,000 units. However, both companies dropped in units sold overall. Xiaomi nearly doubled its market share from 3.6 percent in Q4 2016 to 6.9 percent in Q4 2017. Huawei and Oppo both saw slight increases as well. Xiaomi actually moved almost 79 percent more product YOY in Q4 2017.

The sales drop is notable due to it being the first time. Because now there is saturation point for smartphones in market and each new one released looks and works a lot like the previous year’s smartphones.

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