Samsung the biggest rival to Apple shipped over 79 million smartphones during the first three months of 2016, which was down 4% from its 82.7 million for the first quarter past year, said research firm Strategy Analytics. There was aforementioned decline in China, which was the first such drop that the country had seen in 6 years, but global smartphone shipments had already been slowing down considerably.
"It is the first time ever since the modern smartphone market began in 1996 that global shipments have shrunk on an annualized basis", said Strategy Analytics director Linda Sui.
While a drop in sales in iPhones is a significant setback for Apple's image, Juniper attributes the decline in sales to a "larger than expected success" of the iPhone 6 in 2015.
Samsung remained the leader in the worldwide smartphone market despite a year-over-year decline of 0.6pc in shipments.
Several vendors without a strong base in China are also suffering. Microsoft has posted its worst ever quarter for Lumia sales at only 2.3 million units shipped and Sony has experienced a 57 per cent annual decline.
IDC estimated year-on-year growth in smartphone shipments in the first quarter had been flat at 0.2 percent, reflecting saturation in developed markets.
Samsung has increased profits, but has not produced a strong volume turnaround.
Huawei is continuing its rise, with over 27 million devices shipped.
"Outside of China, many of these brands are virtually unknown and the ability of these rapidly growing Chinese vendors to gain entry into mature markets such as the United States and Western Europe will be essential if they have aspirations of catching Apple or Samsung at the top", Anthony Scarsella, research manager with IDC's Mobile Phone team, said in a statement. Large growth in other areas such as Africa is unlikely it said unless there is a dramatic reduction in prices of lower-end smartphones, meaning that the market decline will continue throughout the year.
The biggest change to the market is the smartphone market in China passing its peak.
For the past couple of years, smartphone makers were riding on the wave of first-time adopters buying smartphones.
He said the cycle is producing commoditization, price competition and the resulting margin squeeze, although he said some room for growth remains since about 40 per cent of global handset users still own a feature phone. Xiaomi is facing tough competition in mid-tier segments from Huawei and Samsung.
He said Samsung, Huawei, Apple, Twitter and Facebook could all be interested in part or all of BlackBerry. And according to data from the U.K.'s Jupiter Research, Apple's iPhone decline is just one sign that the smartphone market has peaked.
As with smartphones, Smith said it is the slowdown of device replacement cycles rather than the dip in tablet sales that will impact carriers the most. "Despite the slowdown, China remains by far the world's largest smartphone market, accounting for almost 1 in 3 of all 334.6 million smartphones shipped globally this quarter".
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Source: Smartphone Shipments Decline; Apple, Samsung Lead Retreat
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