According to the actual POS data, GfK reported that the number of smartphone sales, this does not include shipments. During the second quarter of 2015, global smartphone sales rose from 288.3 million sold last year to 302.1 million units this year. This indicates a 5% increase. That shows a 7% increase from $86 billion to $92.4 billion.
During the three months that ended in June in the North American continent, smartphone sales increased 10% to 44.4 million. Dollar sales during the same period rose to 19% from $15.4 billion during Q2 the previous year to %18.2 this year. In Europe the market for smartphones was weak during the second quarter, as smartphone sales increase to 15.2 million from 14.7 million during last year’s Q2. That indicates a 3% growth. In terms of dollar, sales dropped 15% from $3.7 billion to 3.2 billion indicating a tough growth in Q2 in Europe. The Chinese market experience a decline of 10% to 88.7 million units on smartphones sales, but the dollar sales grew by 17% to 26.8 billion.
During the Q2, China had the highest share in the market for 4G LTE enabled phones. In total, these phones accounted for 58% of the global market during this season, from 26% share these models had in the Q2 of 2014 to 129% year-over-year. China also topped the list for sales of large-screened smartphones in Q2. These models come with screens measuring more than 5-inches. In China, large screen phones with more than 5-inches screen had 63% of smartphone sales in this year’s Q2. In total, 48% of phones sold out this year had a screen larger larger than 5-inches, indicating a 5% increase from the first quarter of this year, and a 17% growth year-over-year.
GfK claims the Indian market is the largest contributor to phone sales growth this year. The slow smartphone penetration in the country coupled with fierce competition, bring down pricing.
“India is expected to be the largest contributor of absolute smartphone unit growth globally this year. The main reason behind this is the currently low smartphone penetration in the market together with a significant intensification of the competition amongst the smartphone vendors, which will drive ASP erosion allowing more affordable devices in the market. The first half of the year has seen macro events providing headwinds to topline demand in regions like C&E. Europe, LATAM and China. However, the underlying trend of consumers optimizing their digital consumption by screen size, within affordability constraints, continues in all regions. This trend can be seen from TV’s down to smartphones. In smartphones, it manifests in trends like price point polarization in the US, the rapid screen-size increases in emerging markets and phablet market development. These trends are forecast to continue to the end of year but we see new inflection points and market drivers for 2016.”-Kevin Walsh, director of trends and forecasting, GfK”
Also, the average selling price of phones in the U.S in Q2 dropped 1% from the first quarter. But pricing increased 3% year-over-year during the second quarter. For the year 2015, GfK forecasts the average smartphone price declining 1% in the United States.