Its time to do the Quarterly update for the Smartphone Wars. First off, the overall market size. I told you last quarter that I felt the big industry analyst houses had it maybe too low, but based on their consensus view of Q2 unit shipments, I downgraded my annual shipment forecast. Now we have Q3 numbers (the average now works out to 354.7 million units worldwide) which is 5% growth compared to Q2. I do think the Q2 numbers were a bit too conservative and I can come back to my original forecast for 2015 total shipments of 1.55 Billlion units and yes, can be a bit below that so lets say its now between 1.53B and 1.55B. (I know these numbers are important to some of our readers here, who have their own models back home..)
So lets do the numbers. The Top 10 largest smartphone brands for Q3 ie July-September Quarter of 2015 are as follows:
BIGGEST SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURERS BY UNIT SALES IN Q3 2015
Rank . . . Manufacturer . Units . . . Market Share . Was Q2 2015 . . OS systems supported (coming)
1 (1) . . . Samsung . . . . 84.2 M . . 23.7% . . . . . . . ( 21.5% ) . . . . . . Android, Tizen
2 (2) . . . Apple . . . . . . . 48.0 M . . 13.5% . . . . . . . ( 14.0% ) . . . . . . iOS
3 (3) . . . Huawei . . . . . . 27.4 M . . . 7.7% . . . . . . . ( 7.6% ) . . . . . . Android (Tizen)
5 (4) . . . Lenovo . . . . . . 18.8 M . . . 5.3% . . . . . . . ( 4.8% ) . . . . . . Android (Tizen)
4 (5) . . . Xiaomi . . . . . . .18.5 M . . . 5.2% . . . . . . . ( 5.6% ) . . . . . . Android
6 (6) . . . LG . . . . . . . . . 14.9 M . . . 4.2% . . . . . . . ( 4.2% ) . . . . . . Android
7 (7) . . . ZTE . . . . . . . . . 14.2 M . . . 4.0% . . . . . . . ( 4.1% ) . . . . . . Android, Firefox
8 ( -) . . . Oppo . . . . . . . . . 12.5 M . . . 3.5% . . . . . . . ( 2.0% ) . . . . . Android
9 (10) . . Vivo . . . . . . . . . . 12.1 M . . . 3.4% . . . . . . . ( 2.8% ) . . . . . . Android
10 (9) . . TCL/Alcatel . . . . 10.3 M . . . 2.9% . . . . . . . ( 2.3% ) . . . . . . Android
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 93.8 M
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . .. 354.7 M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 30 Oct 2015, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared
So Samsung takes a little step up in sales and market share for a change. Apple continues its annual pattern where Christmas sees the 'step jump' and the rest of the nine months sees an annual erosion in market share, this is nothing unusual. For Huawei I adjusted the Q1 and Q2 numbers because we learned the first half sales were 50M and now we know the immediate period before and after, so I have the four consecutive quarters as: 24.4M, 24.4M, 25.6M and 27.4M (this again for those who are following the math back home). This pattern makes more sense than the see-saw we had before for Q1 and Q2.
There is a bit of jostling for fourth place with Lenovo taking that slot from Xiaomi. Then the fight is on the bottom of who is a global Top 10 manufacturer and who isn't. Coolpad is dropped out and as I warned before, China's Oppo was on the bubble and now they are in at 8th ranking. Who is next coming from China? Meizu. Where is the first non-Chinese brand? India's Micromax. And a little side-note on the previous giants, for this Quarter Q3, Japan's Sony (which includes remnants of Sweden's Ericsson) has overtaken Microsoft's Lumia (which is the rump of Nokia's old smartphone unit). Sony sold 6.7 million and Microsoft Lumia 5.8 million smartphones, but both are far out of the Top 10. Both former giants are still shrinking in size of quarterly shipments and have trivial market shares; and both units are unprofitable so its a battle of loser and "loser's loser". Next lets do the OS battle. No 'battle here, so just lets get it over with:
Smartphone OS Shipments Q3 of 2015
Android . . . . 84.2%
iOS . . . . . . . 13.5%
Windows . . . . 1.7%
Blackberry . . . 0.2%
Tizen . . . . . . . 0.2%
Others . . . . . . 0.1%
Total . . . . . . 354.7M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 30 Oct 2015, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared
So yeah, we have Tizen in the charts... Note its statistically tied with Blackberry, but as Tizen didn't announce any number and Blackberry did, well before Samsung results, I expect Tizen did not ship more than BB, so the Tizen number is likely below 800,000 units for Q3. Its by selling one smartphone, the Tizen Z1 by Samsung, but now for Christmas, Sammy has launched their second Tizen phone, the Z3 and they did promise it would be sold in more than the two countries where the original Z1 was available.. We will have to see. On the top, this race was long since decided, Android won. Apple does a nice niche market for the premium price end with iOS. Windows continues to die, now they are down to 1.7% global market share in new sales and as I predicted, now yes, their market share has fallen to below 2% for the first time. The developers have not just stopped making or supporting Windows Phone apps, now many are pulling their old apps away from the Windows app store. It is becoming a Zombie extinction (wow, that is a phrase I never expected to write. And for casual readers, yes 'zombie' is what they call an app that has been abandoned by its developer but still lingers, without support or upgrade, in the app stores. More than 70% of all apps even at iPhone App Store and Google Play, are zombies. But there is an extinction of zombies happening now at Windows Phone app store. That is the very end indeed). Then lets go to the installed base.
INSTALLED BASE OF SMARTPHONES BY OPERATING SYSTEM AS OF 30 SEPT 2015
Rank . OS Platform . . . . Units . . . Market share Was Q2 . Main Manufacturers of current base
1 . . . . Android . . . . . . . 1,808 M . . . 76 % . . . . . . ( 76%) . . . . . . Samsung, Huawei, Sony, ZTE, LG, Lenovo/Motorola, Xiaomi, TCL-Alcatel, Vivo, Coolpad
2 . . . . iOS . . . . . . . . . . . 463 M . . . 20 % . . . . . . ( 20 %) . . . . . . Apple
3 . . . . Windows Phone . . 45 M . . . . 2 % . . . . . . ( 2 %) . . . . . . Microsoft(Nokia)
4 . . . . Blackberry . . . . . . 19 M . . . . 1 % . . . . . . ( 1 %) . . . . . . Blackberry
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 M . . . . 1 %
TOTAL Installed Base . 2,367 M smartphones (2.4 Billion) in use at end of Q3, 2015
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 30 October 2015, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared
Nothing dramatic here. The total installed base of smartphones in use is already 2.4 Billion. Android is at 76% and still growing (but growth now so slow it was in fractions of one percent). Meanwhile Apple iOS, for the first time I see the peak of iPhone installed base having passed in Q2. It is yes, also only fractions of one percent but so you know, last four quarters were 19.5%, 19.7%, 19.7% and now 19.6%. As we already know from Apple own guidance for the Christmas season, there is no dramatic growth in unit sales compared to last year Christmas, but the industry has grown a lot, it means iPhone iOS installed base will now repeat the same market share decline we have seen in the annual sales market share for a couple of years now. This will be far more muted, of course, as the installed base reflects all devices in use, and Apple iPhones have a long life of use in the after-market, as hand-me-down phones and in the second-hand used phone market (also globally, used iPhones are big sellers in Emerging World second hand phone markets). For Apple fans, don't despair, the installed base will still be around 19.5% by year-end ad the rounding-off will probably still show 20% to the end of this year in the installed base. But just please note, the peak has passed and now will be in the same downward path as iPhone annual sales market share of new smartphones has been. That is inevitable math... But now we know it has happened and the gradual decline has started. By about 2020, the iPhone installed base will be down to about 12% when iPhone new unit sales are down to about 10% of all smartphones sold worldwide. (My readers care about these things..)
We also get a convenient rule of thumb now. iOS to Android installed base is now 1:4. So for every iPhone in use worldwide there now are 4 Android smartphones (this excluded tablets obviously where also Android leads but I don't study such tiny markets as tablets or PCs, haha, mobile consumes all of my time in tech). Oh, if you want the ratio to include Windows? Then its 1:10:40 for every 1 Windows smartphone there are ten iPhones and for every 1 Windows smartphone owner you might find, there are 40 Android owners. Nobody makes Windows apps anymore...
Other than Android won these wars, iOS is a healthy niche market for wealthy customers, Tizen is hoping to pass Blackberry and Blackberry is switching to Android, there is one more obvious refrain for us all .Say it with me, readers: Windows Phone continues to remain dead (and Lumia unit shut-down watch is now to 18 months of life left) That the Q3 report. Tune in, in three months, for the Q4 and full year 2015 report.
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