Sales of smartphones around the world recorded their lowest year-on-year growth ever during the first three months of the year, new figures from research company IDC has shown.
According to IDC, 334.9 million smartphones were sold at Q1 2016 compared to 334.3 million during the same period last year – an increase of just 0.2%.
IDC attributes the minimal growth this quarter to strong smartphone saturation in developed markets, the addition of new Chinese brand smartphones, as well as a year-over-year decline from both Apple and Samsung, which as technology market research company says, are the two market leaders.
[quote font_size=”22″ font_style=”italic” align=”left” bgcolor=”#” color=”#” bcolor=”#” arrow=”yes”]IDC attributes the minimal growth this quarter to strong smartphone saturation in developed markets, the addition of new Chinese brand smartphones, as well as a year-over-year decline from both Apple and Samsung, which as technology market research company says, are the two market leaders.[/quote]“As the China market matures, the appetite for smartphones has slowed dramatically as the explosion of uptake has passed its peak. In 2013, China’s year-over-year shipment growth was 62.5%; by 2015, it had dropped to 2.5%. Conversely, the average selling price (ASP) for a smartphone in China rose from US$207 in 2013 to US$257 in 2015.”
Melissa Chau, Senior Research Manager with IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker said “these new vendors would be well-advised not to rest on their laurels”, adding that this dynamic smartphone landscape has shown to that customer loyalty is difficult to consistently maintain.
IDC further states that although some smartphones are already locally recognized as a premium brands, their ability to drive local growth no longer applies when it comes to international expansion, where premium branding quickly turns to price competition.
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