Chinese smartphone brand shipments rival those of global brands
2016/01/17 20:01:08
Taipei, Jan. 17 (CNA) The smartphone shipments of Chinese brands in 2015 were nearly equal to the combined sales of Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc., according to Taiwan-based market information advisory firm TrendForce Corp. (集邦)
In a research report, TrendForce said Chinese vendors shipped 539 million smartphones in 2015, closing in on the combined 547 million units shipped during the year by Samsung and Apple, the two largest global smartphone brands.
The results showed an increase in the Chinese brands' combined global market share to 42 percent in 2015, and that share could increase again to 45 percent in 2016, TrendForce said.
Of the top 10 global smartphone vendors, seven were Chinese, TrendForce said. Huawei Technologies Co. (華為) ranked third with an 8.4 percent market share behing Samsung's 24.8 percent and Apple's 17.5 percent.
Xiaomi Inc. (小米) came in fourth with a market share of 5.6 percent, ahead of Lenovo Group Ltd. (聯想) with 5.4 percent (No. 5).
Other Chinese smartphone brands on the top 10 list in 2015 were TCL with a 4.0 percent market share (No. 7), OPPO with 3.8 percent (No. 8), Vivo Mobile Communication Co. (維沃) with 3.3 percent (No. 9) and ZTE Corp. (中興) with 3.1 percent (No. 10).
South Korea's LG Electronics Inc. was the sixth largest smartphone supplier in 2015 with a market share of 5.3 percent.
TrendForce said Samsung shipped 320 million smartphones in 2015, down 1.8 percent from a year earlier as the South Korean company faced rising competition not only from Apple in the high-end model market but also from Chinese rivals in the low to mid-range device market.
With its flagship models -- the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy Note 5 -- failing to reach sales targets, Samsung's market share fell to about 25 percent from 28 percent in 2014, although it still retained a firm grip on the No. 1 title, the advisory firm said.
On the back of the launch of the latest iPhones -- the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus -- in September, Apple saw its market share rise to 17.5 percent in 2015 from 16.4 percent a year earlier to remain the world's second largest brand, TrendForce said.
In 2015, worldwide smartphone shipments totaled 1.29 billion units, up 10.3 percent from a year earlier, TrendForce said.
(By Esme Jiang and Frances Huang)
