Not too long ago, HTC was the name to beat in the smartphone world, and look at them now. Likewise, there was a time where the behemoth Huawei, sitting barely below top dogs Samsung and Apple, was an underdog viciously chewing through competitors to make it to where it is today. Change of a more sweeping nature is occurring in the smartphone manufacturing world, it would seem; the list of top OEMs is becoming more diverse and less diverse at the same time. To be specific, a vendor out of India has made IC Insights’ top 12 list for the first time, while 8 of the 12 top spots are taken by Chinese vendors. Even with Apple holding down the fort for the United States in Microsoft’s absence, the total number of countries in the running is down to four.
It’s no surprise that Samsung hit the top spot, or that Apple is barely below them, and Huawei’s rise to success was well-documented. Many of the Chinese OEMs on the list have been making a name for themselves for quite some time, like Xiaomi and Oppo, while others, like TCL, have been somewhat obscure over the years, to the point that they seem to have come out of nowhere despite stagnant growth. The growth figures for all of the companies on the chart reflect this trend quite nicely, showing wild growth for some and a very small growth, or even a decline, for others, with almost no happy medium.
Samsung topped the list despite a 1% loss in sales year on year, while Apple’s second place matches up to their 3% loss. Huawei, on the other hand, is in third place because of a substantial 29% growth. Established players LG and ZTE find themselves in spots 7 and 8 respectively this year, disrupted by Oppo’s 54% growth to land in third place, Chinese giant Xiaomi languishing in the same fifth place as last year at 6%,, and Vivo jumping from the tenth spot to the sixth with a whopping 48% growth. Lenovo, meanwhile, saw their fortunes take a nosedive when their 26% loss dropped them from 4th place to 9th. Meizu bumped themselves from spot 14 to spot 11 with 29% growth, and the first Indian OEM to ever make the list, Micromax, posted an insane 74% year on year growth, bringing them from “the best of the rest” at spot 17 to “the rest of the best” at spot 12. Each company’s story is still being written, of course; while the top three giants are likely set in stone save for jockeying amongst themselves, everybody else on the chart could easily run into explosive growth or put out a flop or two and drop off the chart entirely.