Smartphone, global growth slows in the fourth quarter of 2015

Global sales of smartphones to end users was 403 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015, an increase of 9.7% over the same period of 2014. In any case it is the lowest growth rate since 2008. in 2015 as a whole have smartphones tottalizzato 1.4 billion units, up 14.4% compared to 2014.

"The low-cost smartphones in emerging markets and strong demand for premium smartphones, continue to be the driving factors. A strategy of aggressive price from local and Chinese brands in the mid-range and entry-level segments lead consumers to upgrade more rapidly toward more affordable smartphones "said Anshul Gupta, research director for Gartner, who conducted the analysis.

The 85% of users in emerging markets in the Asia / Pacific region are replacing their mid-range phones with devices in the same category. In addition, the devaluation of the currency against the dollar in many emerging markets is placing further pressure on margins of many vendors who import the devices. Current market conditions are pushing some vendors to consider establishing manufacturing operations in India and Indonesia to avoid being hit by unfavorable future devaluations and higher import taxes.

During the fourth quarter of 2015 Samsung and Huawei were the only two smartphone vendor to see increasing sales to end users. Apple has suffered the first decline ever in smartphone sales, down 4.4% el. Although Samsung has managed to place first, Gartner notes that there are major challenges before the company, "Samsung needs to introduce new reference smartphone to stop the decline in sales of premium models, and they can compete with the iPhone in order to disarm the shift to iOS devices "noted Gupta.

Samsung has maintained the first position, but its market share fell by 2.2 percentage points. In 2015, Apple has sold 225.9 million of the iPhone, with a market share close to 16%. Sales of Huawei are amontate untità to 104 million, up 53% and getting the best performance year on year. The increased visibility of the Huawei brand overseas, and its decision to sell almost solely smartphones, has given a major advantage on the sales price during 2015.

Looking at the situation on the front operating systems, Android is growing by 16.6% in the fourth quarter of 2015, constituting 80.7% of the total. "Android has benefited from continued demand for smarthpone affordable and the slowdown of iOS devices in the premium market" says Roberta Cozza, research director for Gartner.