The global smartphone market declined 2.9 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2018 due above all to a slowdown in China, according to latest figures from IDC. Vendors shipped a total of 334.3 million units in the first three months of 2018 compared to 344.3 million units a year earlier, with volumes in China dipping below 100 million for the first time since the third quarter of 2013, attributed by IDC to the lack of new smartphone converts, according Telecompaper. The researcher said consumers appear to be unwilling to shell out big money for increasingly expensive handsets that bring minimal upgrades over their current device.
Samsung continued to top IDC's vendor ranking, shipping 78.8 million devices in the January to March period for a 23.4 percent share of the market, down 2.4 percent from a year earlier, followed by Apple with 52.2 million iPhones sold and a 15.6 percent market share, up 2.8 percent year on year. Despite rumours of an underperforming iPhone X in the quarter, Apple stated that the iPhone X was the most popular model each week in the March quarter, while sales of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus were healthy.
Huawei climbed 13.8 percentage points year on year to 11.8 percent of the market after shipping 39.3 million units thanks to a strong domestic position in China and an improving share across the Western Europe region, above all in Spain, Germany and Italy.
Xiaomi was again the biggest mover due to its strong growth outside of China with Q1 2018 the first quarter that less than half of its shipments were domestic, a transition that very few Chinese companies have reached. The company sold 28.0 million handsets in the January to March period, up 87.8 percent year on year to 8.4 percent of the market, followed by Oppo with 7.1 percent of the market after selling 23.9 million handsets in Q1.
