2015 has been a very intense year in the smartphone industry. Major companies like HTC, Sony and Samsung struggled to increase their profits, while India became one of the most competitive markets in the world.
The year isn’t over yet; there are another 2 ‘long’ months for the smartphone market, because many flagships will be released soon by companies all over the world!
Counterpoint Research has published its data for Q2 2015 which summarizes how the smartphone market went so far.
Generally, the number of shipments increased. Also, LTE adoption had a growth; about 50% of the shipped smartphones in 2015 support LTE connectivity. In fact, India is witnessing the fastest growth in LTE shipments this year, with a 12-fold increase.
As for the market share, Samsung still has the lead with 21% followed by Apple with 14%. It has been a big year for Huawei too, which ranks the third with a 9% market share. Xiaomi and ZTE share the 4th and 5th places with 4% shares.
Even though ASUS and Vivo didn’t make the list, they both are the fastest growing smartphone brands with 500% growth in shipments, which is a fourfold growth rate.
The regional market, however, is different compared to the global one. In South America and Europe, Samsung has the lead. In USA, Apple shares most of the market, followed by Samsung, LG and ZTE. Apple has a very large income and earns more than all the other smartphone manufacturers together, if we exclude Samsung.
Asia is the most diverse market because most the major smartphone companies were founded there. This market has no leader and each of the four major manufacturers share about 10-15% of it. While the general demand in China and in India increased, these companies are working hard to secure higher shares for themselves.
It hasn’t been a very good year for Samsung, which is facing strong competition not only from Apple but also from Chinese manufacturers. This led to poor financial results for the company despite of it coming up with great new handsets.
On the struggle wagon are also LG, Motorola, Sony and Lenovo. They are all having a lot of difficulties breaking out into larger markets. Meanwhile, for Apple, it has been an incredible year in terms of shipments, market share and profits.