South Korean tech giant Samsung has maintained a flat market share of 34 percent year over year during the third quarter of this year, trailing behind Apple which continues to top the smartphone market with a 34.4 percent market share, according to the latest report by Counterpoint Research. Parv Sharma, a research associate at Counterpoint Research, said the Cupertino, California-based phone maker managed to achieve this despite the company’s declining sales, adding that Apple and Samsung together hold more than two thirds of the UK smartphone market in terms of sales volumes and over 80 percent in terms of sales value, leaving only little space for other market players.
When it comes to the bestselling smartphones, Peter Richardson, a research director at Counterpoint Research, said the iPhone 7 topped all the other smartphone brands and accounted for 15 percent of the total smartphone sales in Q3 2017. On the other hand, the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus, which were released in the UK earlier this year, hit the second and third spot with 9 percent and 6 percent contributions, respectively, to the overall smartphone sales during the same period of this year. In regards to the other players in the mobile device market, Sharma added that Huawei has made it to the third top spot in the ranking as the Chinese original equipment manufacturer takes advantage of a diverse portfolio across different price tiers.
Meanwhile, Counterpoint Research’s study reveals that Huawei holds a distant 13 percent of the UK smartphone market during the third quarter of 2017, with Alcatel and Motorola coming in with 4 percent and 3 percent market shares in that period as well, respectively. In terms of sales, the Galaxy J3 accounted for 6 percent of the total smartphone sales in the UK while the Huawei P10 Lite represented 4 percent of total smartphones sold in the country during Q3 2017. When combined, the top five smartphone brands represent nearly 80 percent of the handset sales in the third quarter of this year. Overall, the smartphone sales in the UK stayed significantly the same in Q3 2017 while the mobile device market in the country fell by 8 percent year over year. It remains to be seen how the upcoming mobile device offerings from the leading market players will help increase the smartphone sales in the UK in the future.
