Smartphone sales rise 15.5% in July-September 2015

Global sales of smartphones to end users rose 15.5 per cent to 353 million units in the third quarter of 2015, driven by a continued demand for affordable smartphones in emerging markets. Together, the handset manufacturers had sold 305 million units during the same period a year ago, according to a study by research firm Gartner.

"The availability of affordable smartphones in emerging markets saw consumers upgrade their feature phones to smartphones more quickly because of the small price gap," said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner.

"Smartphone sales in emerging markets rose to 259.7 million in the third quarter of 2015, an 18.4 per cent rise over the third quarter of 2014,  while sales in mature markets saw growth of just 8.2 per cent over the same period," he added.

In the third quarter, Samsung refreshed its flagship devices just four months after its previous refresh to address slowing demand for its high-end devices, and to further compete with Apple's large-screen iPhones.

Apple continued its dominance in the premium segment of the smartphone market with its iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models for most of the third quarter of 2015.

Table 1: Worldwide smartphone sales to end users by vendor in 3Q15 (thousands of units)

*The results for Lenovo include sales of mobile phones by Lenovo and Motorola both in 3Q15 and 3Q14.

The global launch of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus during the last week of September 2015, along with the simultaneous launch in China, further added to Apple's overall sales during the quarter.

Huawei continued its growth momentum, driven by smartphone sales in both its home market and global markets, particularly Europe, where sales were driven by its ever-growing brand visibility, it added.

In the smartphone operating system (OS) market, Apple's iOS continued to see strong performance and grew 21 per cent, above market average. Android gained 1.4 percentage points in share year-over-year thanks to strong smartphone sales from Samsung and Huawei globally.

Windows smartphone market share dropped from 3 per cent to 1.7 per cent year-over-year.

Table 2: Worldwide smartphone sales to end users by operating system in 3Q15 (thousands of units)

*The results for Lenovo include sales of mobile phones by Lenovo and Motorola both in 3Q15 and 3Q14.

"Despite the announcement of Windows 10, we expect Windows smartphone market share will continue to be a small portion of the overall smartphone OS market as consumers remain attracted by competing ecosystems,'' said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner. ''Microsoft smartphones will mainly focus on driving value for enterprise users.''

Table 3: Worldwide mobile phone sales toend users by vendor in 3Q15 (thousands of units)

*The results for Lenovo include sales of mobile phones by Lenovo and Motorola both in 3Q15 and 3Q14.

The global mobile phone sales to end users totalled nearly 478 million units during the third quarter of 2015, an increase of 3.7 per cent from the same period in 2014, Gartner said in a statement.

Continued growth in emerging markets helped bolster sales of local brands. As a result, Micromax Informatics cemented its place among the top 10 global mobile phone vendors worldwide, while Chinese brands such as ZTE, Huawei, Xiaomi, TCL Communication Technology, Oppo and BBK became increasingly aggressive in the emerging markets.