Smartphone Bloodbath Q1 of 2015 same ole, same ole

So yeah, the thrill is pretty well gone from this 'race' and at least some sanity is starting to emerge in the nutty reporting about smartphones also in the mainstream tech and business press. iPhone is not bigger than Samsung (duh!). Xiaomi is not the third-largest smartphone maker (duh!). But we do have some developments. Sony drops out of the Top 10 and is not replaced by Microsoft/Lumia which did outsell them but remain outside of the Top 10 as Chinese newcomer Vivo joins the big list (welcome). So lets do the charts..

BIGGEST SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURERS BY UNIT SALES IN Q1 2015

Rank . . . Manufacturer . Units . . . Market Share . Was Q4 2014 . . OS systems supported (coming)
1 (1) . . . Samsung . . . .  82.8 M . . 24.3% . . . . . . . ( 20.1% ) . . . . . . Android, Tizen, Windows
2 (2) . . . Apple  . . . . . . . 61.6 M . . 17.9% . . . . . . . ( 20.1% ) . . . . . . iOS
3 (3T) . . Lenovo * . . . . . 18.7 M . . . 5.5% . . . . . . . (   6.6% ) . . . . . . Android (Tizen)
4 (3T) . Huawei  . . . . . 17.5 M . . . 5.1% . . . . . . . (   6.6% ) . . . . . . Android (Tizen)
5 (7) . . LG  . . . . . . . .  . 15.4 M . . . 4.5% . . . . . . . (   4.2% ) . . . . . . Android
6 (5) . . . Xiaomi . . . . . . .15.0 M . . . 4.4% . . . . . . .  (   4.6% ) . . . . . . Android
7 (9) . . . ZTE  . . . . . . . . . 12.5 M . . . 3.5% . . . . . . . (   3.6% ) . . . . . . Android, Firefox
8 (8) . . . Coolpad/Yulong  11.5 M . . . 3.4% . . . . . . . (   4.0% ) . . . . . . Android
9 (6) . . . TCL/Alcatel . . . .  9.7 M . . . 2.8% . . . . . . . (  4.5% ) . . . . . . . Android
10 ( - ) . Vivo . . . . . . . . . . 9.3 M . . . 2.7% . . . . . . . (   3.1% ) . . . . . . Android
Others . . . . . . . . . . . .. .   97.1 M
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . ..   340.8 M
 * Lenovo includes Motorola
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 25 May 2015, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

So yeah.. the only two big analyst houses we have left reporting on the industry (IDC and Strategy Analytics) that we have trusted (more or less) to count the total size of the industry both say the market contracted into Q1 from Q4, and by quite a lot in fact. The average that we use here, is down 9% from 3 months prior, and year-on-year the growth is now at a rate of 21% only.

Let me protest profusely here, I think it isn't 'that bad' and we may well get to see these numbers slightly revised upwards in coming quarters or the overall year final counts by these two houses, but what can I do? I gotta play by the rules we created haha... so yes. 340 million is the current latest-quarter count. I still am very confident the year ends up well above 1.5 Billion new smartphones sold probably closer to 1.6B.

Whats happenin' in the chart? Sammy back clearly in the lead. The Apple pattern of a surge for Christmas is now subsiding as expected, and the iPhone market share will fall the next two quarters, and like I've said many times before, the new models this year will determine how Apple does, its possible that we soon see the unit-sales peak of iPhones. It should come in a couple of years. Obviously we've already seen the market share peak of iPhones and my projection is that the actual market share for full-year 2015 for the iPhone will be down again this year.

But Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. That brief respite will not help them in the mid term. There are now stories coming in that the initial glow of the new case materials has not translated into a strong growth and the Galaxy S6 is even underperforming the S5 by some reports. (I told you so, it was a huge mistake to abandon clear competitive advantages such as waterproofing, removable battery and microSD card slot). Now the proof will be in the pudding the next two quarters or so. If Samsung struggles but LG and Sony pick up surprisingly strong sales (and Sony returns to Top 10) my thesis seems very strong. If LG and Sony both continue to also struggle while Samsung fails to capture growth, then its something else. And if Samsung does post strong Q2 and Q3 numbers, then I have no clue what I write about haha...

Lenovo riding its Motorola brand now for good China sales too. Huawei in solid fourth ranking. LG pips Xiaomi for 5th. Then we have the rest of the Chinese brands for the remaining positions, with newcomer Vivo joining ZTE, Coolpad and TCL/Alcatel. Do I have to do the OS platforms?

OS PLATFORMS Q1 2015
Android rules . . . . .  77%
iOS runs second . . . 18%
Windows struggles . . 3%
All others have . . . . . 2%
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 25 May 2015, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

This is sooooooooooooooo boring....  Windows continues to be dead. When will Nadella fire that moron Elop? Firefox now is being shifted in a desperation move away from cheap smartphones - yeah. After Tata motors or Yugo or Proton or  Lada try to sell the cheapest car, what chance to suddenly shift that to a premium brand like BMW or Audi or Lexus. Good luck with that, bitch. Tizen continues to be a promise and Blackberry continues to do worse than anyone could have imagined (now big layoffs).

But lets do the Installed base. That at least has some meaning still

INSTALLED BASE OF SMARTPHONES BY OPERATING SYSTEM AS OF 31 MAY 2015

Rank . OS Platform . . . . Units . . . Market share  Was Q4  . Main Manufacturers of current base
1 . . . . Android . . . . . . . 1,664 M . . . 75 % . . . . . . (  76%) . . . . . . Samsung, Huawei, Sony, ZTE, LG, Lenovo/Motorola, Xiaomi, Coolpad, TCL-Alcatel 
2 . . . . iOS  . . . . . . . . . . . 436 M . . . 20 % . . . . . . ( 19 %) . . . . . . Apple
3 . . . . Windows Phone . . . 47 M . . . . 2 % . . . . . . (   2 %) . . . . . . Microsoft(Nokia), Samsung, HTC
4 . . . . Blackberry . . . . . .  28 M . . . . 1 % . . . . . . (   2 %) . . . . . . Blackberry
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  36 M . . . . 2 %
TOTAL Installed Base . 2,201 M smartphones in use at end of Q1, 2015
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 25 May 2015, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

So why is iOS having so much bigger installed base than its recent market share as the market has kept growing? Its because iPhones get the best life, handed down to others or resold and used for much longer..

Ok thats your Smartphone Bloodbath update for Q1. BTW there is some utterly clueless book out about Blackberry's fall. The Wall Street Journal exerpt tells you all you need to know, the writers thought Blackberry was the biggest smartphone maker (Nokia was more than twice as big, its like thinking Ford is the biggest car maker of the USA haha) and the authors thought Blackberry was losing sales in 2008-2010 when actually Blackberry grew and remained bigger than the iPhone. Idiots with a silly book. It does have some perhaps revealing insights to the politics of executives (at least the Wall Street Journal article exceprt) but when you start off with the basics utterly wrong, the whole book is a pointless read. Obviously I will not endorse the WSJ article either with a link, it totally does not deserve that.

Ok I'll keep monitoring these Bloodbath races but I can't promise how many more quarters this is worth doing. Android won the war and Samsung continues to be the biggest, with China rising. Now 7 of the 10 largest smartphone makers come from China, two from South Korea and one US brand that manufactures its phones in .. China. 

Comments

[Tomi T Ahonen]

The Fake Tomi was here again.. I removed that comment which sounded like me but was not me.

Tomi T Ahonen :-)

[Tester]

@R:

I read that, too. Very interesting. If that article can be trusted, the Tizen API is close to garbage. Which would be par for course for Samsung. The biggest problem with Bada was also some extremely poor programming interface that made simple tasks excessively complicated and error-prone.

It should also serve as a clear indicator that close relationship of operating system has absolutely NO BEARING WHATSOEVER on development and user friendliness, making Tomi's assumptions about Tizen profiting from MeeGo quite dubious.

My take on the matter is that if Samsung wants to self-destruct their best option would be to release a premium device running on Tizen.

[chithanh]

The EFL provide the native Tizen API, however HTML5 is the preferred way to write Tizen apps. So it is not all bad.

It should be noted that besides Bada, Symbian also used poor interfaces (that horrible Symbian C++ dialect, anyone?). For Symbian, the way out was going to be Qt apps written in standard C++.

[Tester]

@chithanh:

" HTML5 is the preferred way to write Tizen apps. So it is not all bad."

I'd say it's even worse. Yet another language to develop apps with? Instant fail!
Remember: Tizen is an upstart, and if it makes it needlessly work intensive to port apps, it will end the same as Windows Phone 7, i.e. kill all chances for success before even launching.

[Mike]

Tomi- I have absolutely nothing to do with the industry (other than being a former Nokia phone consumer). But I love this blog and come back to it regularly. You actually make stats interesting, and your translation of what these stats mean is fascinating.

[Winter]

@Tomi
This is the very first time since you started to publish smartphone sales, i.e., since 1Q2010, that Android sales decline from one quarter to the next.

You write you think that the market did not contract that badly:
"Let me protest profusely here, I think it isn't 'that bad' and we may well get to see these numbers slightly revised upwards in coming quarters or the overall year final counts by these two houses, but what can I do?"

If the total number is up by ~40M (12% and it is all Android), we would see a "normal" growth for 4Q-1Q. But that seems to be an awful lot of missed sales.

If this decline is real, then this might indicate a serious break point in the market.

[zlutor]

@Tomi: Huawei & Lenovo produces any Tizen devices?

[Winter]

@Tomi
Maybe you can block posts containing?
"Tomi T Ahonen :-)"

Might help.

[Winter]

Maybe you can block posts containing? "Tomi T Ahonen :-)"

By others, of course (just to dispel any confusion).

[E.Casais]

@Winter

"If this decline is real, then this might indicate a serious break point in the market."

We actually need the figures on the total mobile market -- not just what are considered "smartphones" -- to assess the situation, keeping in mind the following issues:

a) The long-lasting economic hardship is probably starting to have a widespread impact. This was already the case in specific markets. In Spain, for instance, sales of mobile phones were decreasing a few years ago. One may also assume that people are shifting expenses from costly high-end models to more affordable mid-range devices.

b) There is a general trend towards pre-paid and pay-as-you-go schemes. Correspondingly, this puts the brake on fast device upgrades linked to periodic contract renewals.

c) There has been a continued migration from traditional mobile phones to touchscreen "smartphone" devices. It is possible that the migration has slowed down, as it increasingly concerns people for whom a smartphone is either too expensive to buy and operate, or does not fulfil practical requirements (here is the currently hot mobile phone in Africa: https://medium.com/product-notes/the-mystery-of-the-power-bank-phone-taking-over-accra-344adbb56919; definitely not a smartphone). But to ascertain whether migration is decelerating, one needs the full statistics on the mobile phone market.

d) This has been observed in some advanced markets (e.g. Germany): the number of mobile subscriptions has been decreasing for several years already. Once again, without full statistics we cannot know whether this is due to a decreasing usage of mobile phones, or rather of mobile datacards and other USB connectivity sticks.

The conclusion: stop thinking only in terms of iPhone vs Android -- there are other factors that can explain large market movements.

[DarwinPhish]

Tomi:

I am not sure how you can look at Apple's numbers and not see there is a very good chance they will increase market share this year. iPhone sales up up 40% YoY and last quarter they were up 46% YoY. These numbers are double the growth rate for the industry. If I recall, this time last year you had the iPhone's market share at 15% and now is almost 18%. That is almost 20% growth in market share.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi all

Good discussions, keep them going. Just a quick note, am sure many are interested. Samsung Z1 ie their only Tizen phone so far, released only in 2 countries so far, India and Bangladesh - is now the bestselling smartphone of Bangladesh. Yep. Don't count out Tizen quite yet. One country is not enough but this IS a start. A STRONG start. Now Sammy needs Tizen spread broadly and more handsets into the lineup. Firefox is dying before our eyes, Blackberry and Windows were already dead (on mobile) but Tizen. It has a chance. This is not proof it will succeed but a darn good sign. Story here

http://tech.thaivisa.com/tizen-z1-most-popular-phone-bangladesh/11142/

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[abdul muis]

Tomi,

Dont you think that the only reason people in bangladesh is because of samsung brand and lack of information? Would other more connected/informed market like USA/Europe/Japan/Korea/etc would react the same about Tizen?

[abdul muis]

tomi,

i try to post a link from micro$oft blog about their 'success' in blackmailing android mannufacture to preinstall skype and microsoft office.

but somehow i can't post it.

[adi purbakala]

Why many here post apple beat xiaomi in china again again. Is it same people posting?

The news is not right. It some wrong analyst say. Please dont post fake again again.

[chithanh]

IDC made another forecast.

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS25641615

They say that Windows Phone market share for the whole year 2015 will be 3.2% which seems kind of high.
In the first quarter it was around 2.5% and there are no signs that it changed for the better in this quarter. Quite the opposite actually, with Digitimes reporting reduced part orders from Microsoft.

If we assume that sales only pick up on the launch of Windows 10 Mobile, to reach 3.2% Microsoft would need a whopping 5%+ market share in Q4.

[Winter]

@chithanh
"They say that Windows Phone market share for the whole year 2015 will be 3.2% which seems kind of high."

You mean this IDC?

Why IDC Predicts Windows Phone Will Surpass iOS by 2016
http://www.wired.com/2012/06/why-idc-predicts-windows-phone-will-surpass-ios-by-2016/

[Tester]

LOL.

So IDC still believes in Windows magic. Strongest growth by percentage each year? 5% market share in 2019? Utterly ridiculous.

[Crun Kykd]

I know the numbers are tiny, but all things start out small. SVVR2015 panel predictions for sales of VR headsets at end-of-year are 3.5M units. This is a new market for manufacturers of smartphone screens/cpu/graphics/battery sets that form the foundation of VR headsets.

[abdul muis]

@EggHead

First,
If you go to your kantar World link. It TRACKS URBAN CHINA. NOT ALL china!!!
So, saying Apple beat xiaomi in china is misleading
It should be said Apple beat xiaomi in URBAN china.

Second.....
"Also IDC, though I couldn't find direct IDC link http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/05/12/idc-reports-apple-inc-is-no-1-in-china.aspx"

Is this the same IDC that @Winter said above?
"Why IDC Predicts Windows Phone Will Surpass iOS by 2016
http://www.wired.com/2012/06/why-idc-predicts-windows-phone-will-surpass-ios-by-2016/"

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prSG25614115

IDC hates google, I can't believe IDC data.

So, Maybe Apple ALMOST number 1, but it's STILL NOT number one. And saying it's number one IS WRONG!!