Apple and Chinese makers push Samsung to fifth spot in China smartphone shipments in 4Q2014
Looks like bad news ain’t gonna stop coming for Samsung. According to IDC, in fourth quarter of 2014, Samsung fell to fifth place in smartphone market share. The good thing though is that w.r.t 2014 smartphone sales, Samsung held on to second place. In both instances, Xiaomi grabbed the top spot and from the looks of it, there is no stopping Xiaomi for next few quarters atleast thanks to the new Note and Note Pro devices. Apple took the second spot for 4Q2014 marketshare but could not make a mark in full year sales figures, something that should change in 2015 as iPhone 6/6s sales is off the roof. A total of 420.7 million smartphones were shipped in China in 2014.
Apple made massive gains in final quarter of 2014, thanks to iPhone 6 and 6S sales. Apple’s market share went up from 5.0% to 12.3% and also registered 99.7% YoY gain in units shipped. Huawei too increased market share QoQ and had 28.3% gain YoY. Xiaomi registered 13.7% market share in 4Q2014, down from 14.8% share in third quarter. Xiaomi registered 150% growth YoY (had 6.5% market share in 4Q2013). Huawei took fourth spot in 2014 shipments with 9.8% market share but thanks to healthy sales in final quarter, took third spot with 11% of market share.
Lenovo took the third place for 2014 shipments with 11.2% of market share but could only hit 9.5% of market share in 4Q2014 and slipped to 4th place.
“Although the 3G phone shipments in China were affected by the reduction in operators’ subsidy, the market was able to grow in 2014Q4 due to its growth in 4G phones. Also, while the share of phones sold through operators dropped, the number of phones sold through eTailers increased (share increased from single to double-digit YoY) due to the popularity of eTailers such as jd.com and tmall.com. Apple’s launch of larger screen sized phones also helped to contribute to the increase in shipments,” says Tay Xiaohan, Senior Market Analyst with IDC Asia/Pacific’s Client Devices team.
