Final Q1 Smartphone Market Shares: Top 10 Brands, OS platforms and Installed Base

Well, it seems that Gartner will not give us their count for Q1 of 2014 smartphone market. So I will do the average of the 3 houses that did report - Canalys, IDC and Strategy Analytics. This does mean we have more room for error. Also I have less data points for various players that I report on. But we'll do the best we can, this is still reasonably accurate. I am hoping Gartner will release Q2 data somewhere in early July and in that, hopefully give the comparison to Q1, so we can then retroactively check and perhaps correct these numbers. But we've waited long enough. So the big race Top 10 biggest smarpthone makers in Q1 of 2014:

BIGGEST SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURERS BY UNIT SALES IN Q1 2014

Rank . . Manufacturer . Units . . . Market Share . Was Q4 2013 . . OS systems supported (coming)
1 (1) . . Samsung . . . .  86.8 M . . 30.7% . . . . . . . ( 29.3% ) . . . . . . Android, Windows (Tizen)
2 (2) . . Apple  . . . . . . . 43.7 M . . 15.5% . . . . . . . ( 17.8% ) . . . . . . iOS
3 (3) . . Huawei  . . . . . . 18.2 M . . . 6.4% . . . . . . . (   6.1% ) . . . . . . Android (Tizen)
4 (4) . . Lenovo  . . . . . . 14.1 M . . . 5.0% . . . . . . . (   4.7% ) . . . . . . Android (Tizen)
5 (5) . . LG  . . . . . . . .  . 12.3 M . . . 4.4% . . . . . . . (   4.6% ) . . . . . . Android
6 (6) . . ZTE  . . . . . . . . . 11.4 M . . . 4.0% . . . . . . . (   3.8% ) . . . . . . Android, Windows (Firefox)
7 (8) . . Coolpad/Yulong . 11.1 M . . . 3.9% . . . . . . . (   3.7% ) . . . . . . Android
8 ( - ) . Xiaomi . . . . . . . .11.0 M . . . 3.9% . . . . . . .  (   2.6% ) . . . . . . Android
9 (7) . . Sony . . . . . . . . . . 9.6 M . . . 3.4% . . . . . . . (   3.7% ) . . . . . . Android
10 (9) . Nokia (Microsoft) .  7.1 M . . . 2.5% . . . . . . . (   2.9% ) . . . . . . Windows, Android
Others . . . . . . . . . . . .  53.8 M
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . .  282.6 M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 3 June 2014, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

So as I warned a while back, Xiaomi of China has now entered the Top 10 (kicking out HTC). The top of the chart is rather stable, the movement was modest near the bottom of the table. Samsung is almost exactly twice as large as its nearest rival, Apple at number 2. Samsung grew sales 3% from Q4 of 2014 while Apple saw declining sales -14% in the same period. Meanwhile Apple is safely more than twice as large as the number 3 chasing it, Huawei. Huawei grew 4% from Q4 but that is the seasonal gift-giving season in China (Chinese New Year) so this is not necessarily the pattern that will hold for the full year.

Next lets look at smartphone OS wars. And this is truly over. Its Android.

BIGGEST SMARTPHONE OPERATING SYSTEMS BY UNIT SALES IN Q1 2014

Rank . OS Platform . . . . Units . . . . Market share . Was Q4 2013 . . Manufacturers in Top 10
1 (1) . . Android . . . . . . . 229.0 M . .  81.0 % . . . . . ( 77.4 %) . . . . . Samsung, LG Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Sony, Yulong/Coolpad, HTC
2 (2) . . iOS  . . . . . . . . . . 43.7 M . .  15.5 % . . . . . ( 17.9 %)  . . . . . Apple
3 (3) . . Windows Phone . . 6.2 M . . .  2.2 % . . . . . (  2.9 %) . . . . . . Samsung, Nokia
4 (4) . . Blackberry . . . . . . 3.4 M . . .  1.1 % . . . . . (  1.5 %) . . . . . . (None)
others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.3 M . . .  0.1 % . . . . . (   0.2 %)
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . .  282.6 M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 3 June 2014, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

So yeah. Android powers more than four out of every five smartphones sold. Apple sells most of the rest. As we do also know the Blackberry number, there is truly no space for Windows Phone to do more than what I have for it, at 6.2 million and 2.2% market share (down from 8.3 million and 2.9% market share in Q4). There is no room whatsoever even for 3% market share for Windows Phone, as reported by some. The math does not add up that way.

What of the installed base of smartphones then? Lets update those numbers for Q1 and we get this:

INSTALLED BASE OF SMARTPHONES BY OPERATING SYSTEM AS OF 31 MARCH 2014

Rank . OS Platform . . . . Units . . . Market share  Was Q4 2013 . Main Manufacturers of current base
1 . . . . Android . . . . . . 1,209 M . . . 69 % . . . . . . ( 66 %) . . . . . . Samsung, Huawei, Sony, Lenovo, ZTE, LG, Coolpad, HTC, Xiaomi, SonyEricsson
2 . . . . iOS  . . . . . . . . . 353 M . . . 21 % . . . . . . ( 21 %) . . . . . . Apple
3 . . . . Symbian . . . . . .   58 M . . .  4 % . . . . . . (   5 %) . . . . . . Nokia, Sharp, Panasonic, Fujitsu
4 . . . . Blackberry  . . . . .  52 M . . . 3 % . . . . . . (   4 %) . . . . . . Blackberry
5 . . . . Windows Phone . . 50 M . . . 3 % . . . . . . (   3 %) . . . . . . Nokia, Samsung, HTC, Huawei
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 M . . .  1 %
TOTAL Installed Base . 1,748 M smartphones in use at end of Q1, 2014
Sources: TomiAhonen Almanac 2014 and TomiAhonen Consulting 3 June 2014
This data may be freely used and repeated

Yeah, Symbian is still the third largest smartphone OS by installed base even though its well past a year since they stopped making the devices. Blackberry still holds fourth ranking, barely ahead of Windows Phone as the fifth ecosystem.

Now on those Nokia X Series running on Android. As we know the ceiling of how many is maximum Windows Phone could have sold, and we know that Samsung and HTC still sell some WP phones as well, not just Nokia, but Samsung and HTC primarily sell in the US market and their combined contribution is about 10% of total Windows Phone sales, we get a (very rough) estimate of Windows Phone split like this:

WINDOWS PHONE MANUFACTURERS
Nokia . . . . . . . 5.6 M . . . 90%
Samsung . . . .  0.3 M . . .  5%
HTC . . . . . . . . 0.3 M . . .   5%
TOTAL Q1 . . .  6.2 M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 3 June 2014, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

That gives us the Nokia rough number of Windows Phone/Lumia sales at 5.6 million, and we can then calculate the Nokia X Android number at 1.5 million. So Nokia's Lumia vs X split is like this:

NOKIA Q1 PRODUCT MIX BY PLATFORM
Lumia on Windows Phone . . . .5.6 M . . . 79%
Nokia X on Android . . . . . . . . . 1.4 M . . . 21%
TOTAL Nokia smartphones . . . 7.1 M . . . 
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 3 June 2014, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

And a progression of Lumia sales from its peak when MIcrosoft sale was announced:
Lumia sales Q3 of 2013 . . . . . 8.8 M units . . . . 3.3% market share of all smarpthones
Lumia sales Q4 of 2013 . . . . . 8.2 M units . . . . 2.9% market share of all smartphones
Lumia sales Q1 of 2014 . . . . . 5.6 M units . . . . 2.0% market share of all smartphones
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 3 June 2014, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

Clearly the world of the smartphone market has NOT fallen in love with the idea that Microsoft will take over Nokia's smartphone business, and the pairing of 'Good Cop/Bad Cop' where Nokia was good and Microsoft bad, now being only 'Bad Cop' is producing continuously falling sales of Lumia and Windows Phone (as I predicted). After this quarter, the Nokia handset business shifted to Microsoft's ownership and we may get even more fuzzy details about their handset business, lets see, But it won't be long before Nokia/Microsoft would fall out of the Top 10 anyway.

Then on the Android. This is also getting very boring as the Android internal market shares now start to mirror those of the overall market shares, as Android is such a massive part of all smartphone sales. But lets do this. The split of Android makers looks like this:

ANDROID MANUFACTURERS:
Samsung . . . . . 31%
Huawei  . . . . . . . 6%
Lenovo . . . . . . . . 5%
LG . . . . . . . . . . . 4%
ZTE . . . . . . . . . . 4%
Coolpad . . . . . . . 4%
Xiaomi . . . . . . . . 4%
Others . . . . . . . 42%
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 3 June 2014, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

But for those who want the Samsung split, it looks like this:

SAMSUNG PRODUCT MIX Q1 2014
Android . . . . . . . . .  86.5 M . . . 99.7%
Windows Phone . . . . 0.3 M. . . . 0.3%
Total  . . . . . . . . . . . 86.8 M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 3 June 2014, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

Thats about all folks. If you want Q4 of 2013 numbers and the full year 2013 numbers of the bloodbath, they are here.

More Bloodbath stats for 2014 when Q2 data comes out... 

PS if you need stats on mobile industry, the brand new TomiAhonen Almanac 2014 edition is out.

Comments

[Abdul Muis]

Thanks for the data Tomi. I hope you don't wait Gartner until September for the Q2 2014 data.

My question to you:
1. Apple, Foxcon say that Apple will have 4.7" & 5.5" device, do you think Q3 2014 will help apple/iOS, is baron right?
2. HTC. Why?? Why?? I want to know your opinion on HTC. HTC was regarded as rising brand, then suddenly down. Why?
3. You said in the past that BB will survive, do you still think the same? How small they might be. 0.5% market share?
4. What is Motorola number? and it's rank.

Thank you for the data.

[AndThisWillBeToo]

I'm more interested to hear Tomi's view on first Tizen phone announced two days ago.

[Stormwatch]

Seriously, Tomi: by "installed base", do you mean "phones that are actually *still* in use"? Is there a way to check that?

[Abdul Muis]

@Stormwatch

Just like the number of human on this planet and everything else. We don't really know how to calculate the real 100% number. It just an estimation that were based on how long a device will be be used, how many percentage it broke/lost/stolen on each month, etc.

[virgil]

Well, Tomi, maybe it's like in that indian joke (*) - Gartner is waiting for you to release you numbers, before they publish theirs :P

(*) in case you don't know it:
It was autumn, and the Indians on the remote reservation asked their
new Chief if the winter was going to be cold or mild.

Since he was an Indian Chief in a modern society, he had never been
taught the old secrets, and when he looked at the sky, he couldn't tell
what the weather was going to be.

Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he replied to his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect wood to be prepared. But also being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, "Is the coming winter going to be cold?"

"It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold indeed," the Meteorologist at the weather service responded.

So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood in order to be prepared.

One week later he called the National Weather Service again. "Is it going to be to be a very cold winter."

The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of wood they could find.

Two weeks later he called the National Weather Service again. "Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?"

"Absolutely," the man replied. "It looks like it's going to be one of the coldest winters ever."

"How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked.

The weatherman replied, "The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy."

[E.Casais]

@Tomi

A small methodological question: are you using the average, or the median of the published statistics to determine your figures?

Overall, the picture is impressive: mobile phones have joined every other consumer electronics segment with far eastern firms utterly dominating the market -- 1 Japanese, 2 Korean and 5 Chinese.

[zlutor]

@Tomi: any info on Nokia XL unit numbers?

[Wayne Borean]

The Symbian numbers are fascinating. It may only be a year since the last Symbian phone was sold, but even before that Nokia was spending most of their advertising budget on Windows Phone. That Symbian is still above Windows Phone for installed base, is a really bad indicator for Microsoft.

Then of course there's Surface Pro 3, a device with no discernible market.

Wayne

[AndThisWillBeToo]

So... Firefox, Sailfish, Ubuntu and all others that Tomi said still can be a major player in smartphones (Jan 2013) ALL TOGETHER account for 0.1% of sales - literally within rounding error.

How many trends never came to be? HTML5 based phones? Third ecosystem? (WP is not one either) Linux-based OS, true multitasking and carrier customization as major advantage? App stores being a no-story?

Windows Phone (a failure) was never supposed to bypass BB market share. And now BB is at half the market share of WP. Who could have thought that the market saturates to such a state?

[zlutor]

ehhr, I meant Nokia X family numbers, of course...

[tontridge]

include stdio.h

int main()
{
int number;
printf("\Enter your stats for phones mother: ");
scanf("%d",&number);
number = (number * 0.456 * 8 / 7)* android * windows_phones / idiots;
printf(:\nYour answer is nothing but trash mother!! %d\n",number);
return 0;
}

[asdfds]

IDC released market share stats for Q1 2014:
http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp
Windows Phone slowly disappears. :)

[baron99]

So it looks like Microsoft peaked around 3% ...and now heading back down. It's the same old story NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE! ...and NO ONE EVER DID WANT A WINDOWS PHONE! ...and NO EVER WILL WANT A WINDOWS PHONE! ....I just have to laugh at the astroturfers bragging about their 3rd ecosystem nonsense for "YEARS". Just too too funny!

[RottenApple]

@baron99:

And they still have hopes, now that the licensing fees have been dropped. As if that was the problem the system has...

[baron99]

@ RottenApple ...yes Microsoft still believes they are relevant even with no licensing fees. But after decades of crappy virus laden products people have learned to avoid anything Microsoft. Their reputation is the problem! When there is a choice no one picks Microsoft (but their legions of astroturfers would like you to believe otherwise - It is fun to laugh at them. Hey astroturfers ...NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE! LOL...)

[Lodbrok]

First two tables are compared to Q3 2013. Really? Why?
Last table is compared to Q4 2014? Huh? More interesting to compare with Q1 2013 and perhaps in second hand the previous quarter.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi all..

thanks for the comment. Please note that I added some detail to the numbers (answering some of your questions too) like the Nokia X vs Lumia sales Android vs Windows Phone. I'll do some replies now to the comments.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Abdul - lots of questions, several would need long answers... Apple? Who knows what they will do, but they definitely need a larger-screen iPhone. HTC? I'm as baffled as you. BB yeah, they are now a totally niche player but as niche they should be able to return to profits (no sign of that from Waterloo yet). Motorola bubbles close to Top 10. They announced their number as 6.5M for Q1 which would put them at rank 12 just behind HTC. The combined Motorola and Lenovo sales would be 20.7M and third ranking at 7% market share.

AndThis - I am very disappointed with the first Tizen smartphone. It seems to be repeating the Nokia Lumia original launch mistake of offering a supposed 'flagship' that doesn't even match the specs of their own flagship on the other platform ie Android and Galaxy (much how Lumia 800 was not even matching Symbian and MeeGo flagship devices of the time)

Stormwatch - yes. Phones in use. Yes there is a way to check it, means doing massive global surveys of actual smartphones in use. ComScore is currently doing the largest international survey of phone brands in use, but several national surveys come out from time to time. I was the first analyst to offer an installed base global number and have been refining my model as the national data has come in, and I am confident it is very close to the mark by now. If you find any other source of a global installed base of smartphones in use, that is in the public domain, please share with us. Note that such measures as browswer usage, is already severely misleading as it for example will overcount Apple share (as iPads and iPod Touch devices cannot be separated from iPhones and Blackberry's own data transfer systems mean that Blacberry is undercounted etc). I mean surveys of actual handsets in use, not usage of their browsers or ad page views.

Abdul yes but we can get very close to accurate by models that adjust the new-purchased phones (which we know rather well) and the total phones in use (which we can get rather well from survey data). The issue that muddles the numbers up, is that some phones tend to have very long afterlives, ie sold in the second hand market (like Nokia Symbian) or handed down to family members (old iPhones). But once that is known (or reasonably estimated) we can get quite accurate numbers that also keep reporting a realistic number as various market shares of the players change (like Nokia's and Blackberry's collapses). I know that many big analyst houses have their algorithms to calculate this data too, I believe mine is currently the most accurate.

virgil - haha fab joke! And I'd love it if the Gartner people thought that highly of this silly blog but no, they just (like all analyst houses) want to boost their report sales so they don't give out all the same data every single period.. Its their way of operating. I keep giving out as much as I possibly can, for free, always. I get my business from clients who trust me. Its my way of operating.

E. - using average ie 'mean' of the total market size (as always). It won't always agree with my gut-feeling number - and will from time to time be revised by some of those analysts (without warning us or explaining why) and that usually is in the direction I mentioned on my blog haha.. But yeah. I go by their 'verdict' such as now in Q1, I did think that China sales was so strong, the total market grew from Q4 but the average of these 3 analyst houses did bring the total sales down by 2% from Q4. I have to go by something haha even if I feel that doesn't smell quite right...

zlutor - its now in the blog! 1.5M is very close to the truth on Nokia X, as the Windows Phone number is constrained by the other data and can't really be bigger than what I have as 6.2M (and that includes Sammy and HTC)

Thanks folks, I'll try to come back for more comments.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Brian Stephens]

There's a very good joke doing the rounds on Twitter with regard to Tizen.

"Tizen. For those who bought Samsung Galaxy just for TouchWiz."

I don't see how Samsung can possibly win with this. There'll be no apps for it, the specs of the device are rubbish, the UI is ugly and the OS is probably 3-4 years behind Kitkat in terms of features/functionality, no other players in the industry are getting behind it, it doesn't do anything new or disruptive.

[zlutor]

@Tomi: 1.5 mio Nokia X phone - well, not so bad, is it?

Here it comes a bette rvariant: Nokia X2 (http://www.bgr.in/manufacturers/nokia/exclusive-nokia-x2-android-smartphone-to-be-launched-later-this-month/)

Slightly better CPU/GPU and the well awaited 1GB RAM. If price tag is competitive it could result in fancy numbers - especially compared with Lumia sales...