No one can deny the success Samsung has had with Android over the past couple of years. Ever since launching the original Galaxy S phone all the way back in the summer of 2010 it has made itself into a worldwide phenomenon, now reigning supreme as the king of smartphone sales worldwide. Now, however, we’re seeing the turning of a trend where Samsung’s sales are starting to decline year-over-year, taking the place of the meteoric rise that they once enjoyed in the world of sales. While the worldwide smartphone market grew 23.1% since the summer of 2013, Samsung’s marketshare actually went down 7% worldwide, meaning they are failing to pick up most of the growth in the industry and are seemingly going the way of Apple after all.
The big difference here is that Apple has continually increased its shipment numbers, but never enough to actually give it a boost in percentage over other manufacturers who are coming in and selling to more people. Samsung actually shipped 3 million fewer phones in Q2 2014 than they did in Q2 2013, with 74.3 million phones shipped this year vs 77.3 million last year at this time. This is a big blow to the South Korean tech giant who will likely feel this in their stock value over the next coming days and weeks.
What we’re seeing in these numbers from the International Data Corporation, who’s job is to study markets and deliver sales results for companies and their investors, is that nearly every other OEM has taken Samsung’s marketshare over the past year, bringing more variety to the market than ever before. LG is even seeing a slight dip in their marketshare too even though they’ve recently launched the LG G3 to much acclaim around the world, but it’s because they only launched the G3 in South Korea at the end of the quarter. On the bright side for LG it actually shipped 2.3 million phones more this year at 14.5 million, versus last year at 12.1 million, showing what the impact of the G2 and G Pro 2 have had on their numbers, and the G3 will likely have in this next quarter of sales.
Huawei and Lenovo have seen the largest growth of all though, not only selling quite a few more phones but increasing in marketshare worldwide too. Lenovo sold 4.4 million more phones this quarter than last at 15.8 million sold, giving them an extra boost to their market share from 4.7% to 5.4%. Huawei saw the biggest increase in actual sales though, jumping from 10.4 million phones sold in Q2 2013 all the way to a crazy 20.3 million sold in Q2 2014. This bumped their worldwide marketshare up to 6.9% and they now enjoy the spot of 3rd largest OEM in the world. Overall the trend of smaller smartphone manufacturers finally making a big break means more competition and quality for customers, and spells out good things for the future of the industry.
