The Galaxy Note 7 caused Samsung much grief lately. The company was forced to recall their flagship phablet twice since it launched back in August, and after the second recall, they’ve opted to cut their losses and stop selling the device altogether. That had a serious impact on the company’s profits in the third quarter of this year, as Samsung managed to produce the worst results in the last 8 years. Having that in mind, IDC has just released Q3 figures for the global smartphone market, so let’s see how are companies holding up, shall we.
As is the case every three months, IDC (International Data Corporation) releases quarterly figures for top smartphone manufacturers in the world, along with some additional info. Smartphone manufacturers have managed to sell 362.9 million smartphones in the third quarter of this year, which means that global smartphone sales are up 1% compared to the same period last year. Having that in mind, Samsung is still in the lead as far as both market share and shipments are concerned. The company had managed to ship out 72.5 million smartphones in the third quarter, and currently holds 20% of the market. Now, the company actually managed to ship 13.5% less smartphones than last year, and their market share dropped by 3.3%. Samsung is followed by the likes of Apple and Huawei, and their smartphones occupied 12.5% and 9.3%, respectively, in the last quarter. Apple had shipped 45.5 million smartphones, while Huawei had sold 33.6 million handsets. If we compare this with last year, we’ll be able to see that Apple’s shipments fell 5.3%, while Huawei’s rose 23%.
Now, things are also interesting in 4th and 5th place where we can find two China-based companies, OPPO and Vivo. These two companies are doing great, as they’ve managed to ship over 100% more devices than in the same period last year. OPPO had shipped out 121.6% more devices than in Q3 2015, while Vivo had sold 102.5% more devices. OPPO had occupied 7% of the market in Q3 this year, while Vivo took 5.8%. This is very interesting considering these two companies are mainly active in Asia. OPPO had sold 25.3 million smartphones in Q3 this year, while Vivo had shipped out 21.2 million handsets.