Full Year 2016 Smartphone Market Top 10 Numbers, and OS platforms and Global Installed Base, all here. Oh, and Q4 market data as well

Its time to do the full-year smartphone numbers. I think we have just about all the data that will be made public, as increasingly many of the major players don't release smartphone unit sales numbers, and even the number of major analyst houses who used to provide a lot of data has shrunk to two who reliably do that anymore (IDC and Strategy Analytics). So we will do our best. We do get the total market size simply as the average of the big 2 analyst houses. For Q4 that number is 433.6 Million units. It is a growth of 8% vs the same quarter one year ago. But as our industry experienced its first-ever recession earlier in the past year and for two quarters year-on-year sales actually declined, the total year turned up with only slight growth of 3%. We end the year 2016 with still not quite 1.5B smartphones sold, we reached 1,481 million, ie 1.48 Billion. So lets start with the big tables everybody wants. The Top 10 smartphone brands for year 2016:

2016 FULL YEAR SMARTPHONE SALES STATISTICS

Rank . Brand . . . . 2016 units . . Share . . 2015 units . . Share . . 2014 units . . Share

1 (1)  . Samsung  . . 308.9 M . . . . 20.8% . . 322.0 M . . . 22.4% . . .314.2 M . . . 24.2% 
2 (2)  . Apple  . . . . . 215.4 M . . . . 14.5% . . 231.4 M . . . 16.1% . . 192.7 M . . . 14.8%
3 (3)  . Huawei . . . . 139.0 M . . . . 9.4% . . 108.0 M . . . . 7.5% . . . 75.0 M . . . . 5.8%
4 (8)  . Oppo . . . . . . . 91.0 M . . . . 6.1% . . 50.0. . . . . . . 3.5%  . . . . - - - . . . . . . - - - 
5 (-) . . Vivo . . . . . . . . 73.0 M . . . . 4.9% . . . . - - - . . . . . . - - -  . . . . - - - . . . . . . - - -
6 (7)  . ZTE . . . . . . .  57.0 M . . . . 3.8% . . 57.2 M . . . . 4.0%  . . 46.1 M . . . . 3.5%
7 (6)  . LG  . . . . . . . . 55.1 M . . . . .3.7% . . 59.7 M . . . . 4.2% . . . 59.1 M . . . . 4.5%
8 (5)  . Xiaomi . . . . . . 54.3 M . . . . 3.7%. . 71.0 M . . . . .4.9%. . . . 61.1 M . . .  . . 4.7% 
9 (4)  . Lenovo  . . . . . 53.1 M . . . . 3.6% . . 76.3 M . . . . 5.3% . . . 95.2 M . . . . 7.3%
10 (10) . TCL-Alcatel . 38.0 M . . . . 2.6% . . 43.5 M . . . . .3.2%. . . . 41.4 M . . .  . . 3.2% 
Other . . . . . . . . . . . 396.5 M . . . . 26.8%
TOTAL . . . . . . . . .1,480.9 M . . . . . . . . . 1,437.3 M . . . . . . . . .1,300.6 M
Source: TomiAhonen Phone Book 2016
This data may be freely used and repeated


There's the big table for you. The top three are stable, have been the same now for two years so Huawei was the company able to break that dangerous 'third place jinx' that seemed to doom so many rivals who were once in third place during the 'smartphone bloodbath years' we had early in this decade. Vivo is the big newcomer jumps in at number 5 and Oppo (part of the same family) is at number 4. Xiaomi never was a serious threat for world domination, and now is lingering in 8th place and doing so badly, the company stopped reporting quarterly unit sales figures. Lenovo is struggling to get traction out of its Motorola brand, LG is back to making losses with its handset business and TCL went and bought Blackberry rights after it previously had acquired Alcatel and Palm brands. The one nearly invisible mid-tier player that is solidly doing a decent job but nobody talks about them is ZTE, riding its carrier relationships and selling smarpthones and climbed one rank from 7th to 6th place.

What can I say? The 'thrill' of the bloodbath and astonishing turmoil in the Top 10 has long since passed. This is a three-horse game, Samsung, Apple and Huawei are set in their positions and that won't change in the next year, there is too much distance between the three players and the rest of the field that tries to climb up. The fight in the mid-tier is jockeying for position but thats a cut-throat Android price war going on there, same type of phones with same specs and no real loyalty anywhere. Chinese brands may climb fast on their domestic market if they have a hit phone (see Xiaomi) and then are unable to turn that into the same success globally because of .. carrier relations (see Xiaomi). And even former powerful brands like say Lenovo's Motorola or TCL's Palm (and now Blackberry) can't turn a player into an overnight success. It takes years to build the global footprint even if you are Apple (who managed it in four years) so don't expect Oppo or Vivo or any next tier player like a Meizumi or any other brands from other countries like say Karbonn or Micromax from India, to have any fast success either, even if they make it into the Top 10. If you want to watch someone, it is how Oppo does. Can it follow in Huawei's footprints (Huawei was at about the same market share two years ago). I doubt it but they're about the only interesting story in this Top 10. And outside the Top 10? HTC continues to play its long-form death. Google's Pixel hahahahaha yeah that was funny when some said they thought Google would be challenging Apple and Samsung. But the outsider to watch is. Nokia. Return has started. The only Android phone model already being sold, did over a million units of sales in China in its first week. HMD the company now running the Nokia phone brand will be showing several phones in Barcelona this month at the big mobile industry event, and they will likely have half a dozen Android smartphone models by the end of the year, sold in most major markets where Nokia used to be strong. Nokia is the dark horse to watch this year, especially towards Q4. I'll give you more of my prognosis after we see the official announcements of their first phones later this month.

So that was the Top 10 brands. What about smartphone OS systems? No race there. For the year it was 84% Android, 15% iOS and less than 1% for all the other brands to share with none getting even large enough to hit 0.5% so we could round-off the number to a pretend-one-percent share. This part of the smartphone 'race' has been settled years ago as I wrote on this blog.

INSTALLED BASE

The most useful info out of this blog article series continues to be the installed base calculation, that nobody else is reporting. What is the total installed base of smartphones in use, rather than what numbers were sold in the past quarter; and more importantly for any developers, what is the SHARE of the installed base, by OS platforms.


SMARTPHONE INSTALLED BASE AT END OF 2016 BY OPERATING SYSTEM

Rank . . OS . . . . . . . . 2016 units . . share . 2015 units . . share . . 2014 units . . share
1 (1) . .  Android  . . . . 2,560 M . . . . 80% . . 2,079 M . . . . . 79% . . 1,696 M . . . . . 77%
2 (2) . .  iOS . . . . . . . . . 602 M . . . . 19%  . . . 505 M . . . . . 19% . . . . 406 M . . . . . 18%
Others  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 M . . . . . 1% . . . . . 56 M . . . . . . 2% . . . 108 M . . . . . . . 5%
TOTAL  . . . . . . . . . . . 3,193 M . . . . . . . . . . . 2,640 M  . . . . . . . . . . 2,210 M
Source: TomiAhonen Phone Book 2016
This data may be freely used and repeated

So the smartphone installed base is almost at 3.2 Billion. One in five smartphones in use worldwide is an iPhone, the other 4 out of 5 are Androids. To find ANY other smartphone OS, your chances are 1 in 100, and thats then more likely to be an ancient smartphone clutched by a loyal Nokia brand fanatic on the ancient Symbian OS, or an equally fanatical Blackberry user. Even less likely, but in some places, like in India it may perhaps be a Tizen user. And there is essentially no chance you'll find a Windows user who isn't actually working for Microsoft or is one of its suppliers.

Let me say here that if these numbers are not good enough for you - remember this is a free blog, no registration and no advertising to bug you either - nobody else gives this depth of data for free about smartphone market size - then please yes, do get yourself the brand new TomiAhonen Phone Book. It has all data fresh from one month ago, effective December 2016. For a mere 10 Euros, it has over 100 charts and tables of every conceivable statistic you could hope to find. Screen sizes, camera resolutions, NFC, GPS, Bluetooth, everything you could hope to know about the handset market globally and by regions as well. See table of contents and ordering page here: TomiAhonen Phone Book 2016.

(For those who only occasionally visit this blog, note that the previous year's installed base numbers are lower in last year's edition of this statistical summary. We did a recalibration of the installed base numbers last year when some international user data came out. These numbers are the best ones I have, please ignore the old blogs which used the older data model).

Ok, then all we have left to do is for the serious statistical propeller-heads, the Q4 numbers as well.



BIGGEST SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURERS BY UNIT SALES IN Q4 2016

Rank . . . Manufacturer . Units . . . Market Share . Was Q3 2016 
1 (2) . . . Apple  . . . . . . . 78.3 M . . 18.0% . . . . . . . ( 12.3% ) 
2 (1) . . . Samsung . . . .  77.5 M . . 17.9% . . . . . . . ( 19.8% ) 
3 (3) . . . Huawei  . . . . . . 44.9 M . . 10.4% . . . . . . . (   9.1% ) 
4 (4) . . . Oppo . . . . . . . . 30.6 M . . . 7.1% . . . . . . . (   6.5% )
5 (5) . . . Vivo . . . . . . . . . 24.3 M . . . 5.6% . . . . . . . (   5.3% ) 
6 (8) . . . ZTE  . . . . . . . . 22.6 M . . . 5.2% . . . . . . . (   3.7% )
7 (7) . . . Lenovo .  . . . . . 16.5 M . . . 3.8% . . . . . . . (   3.8% )
8 (6) . . . Xiaomi . . . . . . .15.2 M . . . 3.5% . . . . . . .  (   3.9% )
9 (9) . . . LG  . . . . . . . .  . 14.2 M . . . 3.3% . . . . . . . (   3.6% ) 
10 (10) . TCL/Alcatel . . .  10.5 M . . . 2.4% . . . . . . . (  2.5% ) 
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99.2 M
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433.8 M

Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 2 February 2017, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared 


There you go. The industry numbers all here. Top 10 brands and OS platform wars and installed base. Bookmark this page and send your friends, its the only place that has all the market share data in one place. And I report these numbers every quarter here, so expect the next update in April for Q1 of 2017. Last year's numbers are here if you need it.

And yes, if you need more data on the handset market - best data source on the planet is the TomiAhonen Phone Book 2016. Get it while it's hot.

Comments

[Abdul Muis]

@Tester

OS/2 can run DOS & Win 3.x program better than Win 3.x did
OS/2 can run DOS & Win 3.x program better than Win95 did!!

@PWE

The thing is, at the start when OS/2 & Win95 start to fight for marketshare, MS did a Win95+Office bundling that kill the competitor. Just like it did to kill DR-DOS, Novell Netware, Netscape, .....

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Everybody

'The' gift is now out. I hinted about this before. So yeah, you all get the Almanac for free. Not the current one, but just one edition out, the previous edition. 212 pages, utterly unrestricted, no copy protection full pdf file, every stat & table you could hope for, and no registrations, nothing. Just download. See new blog article today (download via Lulu.com the ebook publishing site)

To all my readers especially all you who comment so regularly, seriously: THANK YOU. That ebook is for you!

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tester]

@Abdul Muis:

I'm sorry to say this, but I hear the fanboy speaking in those statements.

Just reading up on the history it should be clear that a system that had failed for 8 years to gain traction would not magically come out as the winner here. There's also this interesting statement on the Wikipedia page: "IBM signed the license agreement 15 minutes before Microsoft's Windows 95 launch event" which clearly shows thar IBM knew that OS/2 was doomed. How would you expect the customers to have faith in something if not even its manufacturer has!?

[Wayne Borean]

@Tester

Because Microsoft cut off IBM's oxygen, by making OS2 an extra cost add-on. We used OS2. It came on computers which already had a Windows liscense, making OS2 an extra cost.

Microsoft had the computer OEMs sign contracts that every system sold would have Windows on it, making users pay for TWO operating systems. Many were not willing to pay twice.

[Tester]

@Wayne Borean:

Make that rather: Most users simply were not interested in a second OS that outside of tech folks nobody knew. It was the classic case of a system being so good at emulating another one, everybody used the original because - why use an impostor if you don't really gain from it?

@Wayne Brady:

You still don't understand Google, apparently. They do not need 'control' of Android. What they need is that their software in installed by default and users who want to buy stuff go to Google Play first. Because that's what locks them into their services. I think that's still working, because no hardware manufacturer can risk eliminating the network effects at work here.

You are making the typical mistake and seeing everything from Apple's point of view, but Apple has an entirely different business model, because they make most money from selling hardware, not services.

IBM was like Apple, so the open platform they created directly impacted their profit line.

[Per "wertigon" Ekström]

@Wayne:

You make the assumption that all money will always be on iOS.

This is already shifting in favor of Android. Android's network effects will eventually bring the money over to Android.

Or like this. I do not know if you play League of Legends. Probably not. In that game, there are several different objectives and one team cannot do them all.

However, there are two main objectives. Push lanes, and farm gold. As long as you do those significantly better than the other team, it doesn't matter what the other team does.

Apple has complete control of the Jungle on both sides of the map. They have slain ten dragons and five barons. Yet, the other team has more income and is knocking on their gates - because they stuck to the main objectives and did those well.

If you are producing an alternative platform, market share is your main objective. It doesn't matter that you've managed to win all secondary objectives. The main objective is lost, and in time, so will every secondary objective as well.

Because, market share gives network effects that gives more market share which gives more network effects that gives even more market share...

So yes. It will take a couple of decades but eventually the beloved iPhone will dwindle to nothing. But it was decided this decade. :)

[Cycnus]

@PWE
"So yes. It will take a couple of decades but eventually the beloved iPhone will dwindle to nothing."

Whoa. Roll back your clock for two decades and check what you see around you. In 1997 you won't have Android - you won't even have Symbian! Or compare it other way around: 2013 Tomi told us that Microsoft Windows - although once dominant PC operating system - was forever doomed since Android and iOS outsell it. Two decades back Microsoft was not even having Windows 95!

A company that remains in strong position for twenty years is a miracle - and you are going to give Apple another 20 to go with the 9 they already have?

[Tester]

It all depends if smartphones remain the be-all-end-all of communication.
I honestly do not expect to see iPhones or even Android phones 20 years from now, there will probably be something different by then, and who knows who will be the dominant player then? Can be Apple, can be Google, can be Microsoft - or more likely someone we haven't heard from yet.

[Per "wertigon" Ekström]

@Cycnus:

Yes, Apple will take a while to fade out, just like Microsoft is taking a while to fade out. IBM is also still with us to some extent.

But I don't know if I'd call IBM or Microsoft in a very strong position, these days...

[Winter]

@cygnus
Apple vs Google is currently in the position of Apple vs MS around 1990. Apple has the cool rich crowd, MS/Google have the bland, uncool poor crowd.

Three decades later, and indeed, Apple is still around, because they moved to different markets. But Apple does not drive PC technology nor smartphone technology. My best bet is that the iPhone will go the way of the Mac. Beloved by a minority, but not an influence of progress in technology.

Apple are hughly profitable, just like premium Cognac or watches. And they are equally inconsequential.

[Thereyougo]

"The remaining 2 billion are even poorer customers."

THIS IS NOT CORRECT!!! The remaining 2 billion is:
* NOT RICH YET, but will be with the help of android, and will be loyal to android

No. They cant afford to have an iPhone but they will change to iPhone when get richer. There is no loyalty to Android. It is very silly to think like that. It would be same that today you can afford to only drive a Lada and not the BMW and when you become richer you would stay loyal to Lada and not to change your car to BMW even though you can afford it.

* technological illiterate, don't know how to use smartphone YET, but WILL BE, and will be loyal to android once it got a hang of it

Total BS. The point why you have SMART phone is that you do not need to concentrate to fiddle it all the time that the phone takes care of it by itself (ie Apple fixes the bugs and gives the updates to you regularly). Why would you stay loyal to piece of Android shit that all the time consumes your energy and time?? You want to have something that dont bother you all the time.

* still NOT old enough to own one"
That is already solved. My old iPhone goes to the next child and then her iPhone goes to the youngest one. This happens all the time all over the world.

[Per "wertigon" Ekström]

@Thereyougo:

Not impressed. At all.

Apple is hogging the profit pie but their ecosystem is shrinking all the time. I already knew this.

That shrinking ecosystem will eventually hurt their profit pie. Apple may have a few anomalies but they will stay around the 200M-250M units per year for now, and around 2020 they will start shrinking. In 2030 they will have maybe 120M-150M units anually (if smartphones have not been disrupted completely by then).

Also, people are animals of habit. If they grow up on Android they will be more comfortable with Android than Apple. Similar to how most PC users are more comfortable with Windows than MacOS/OSX, despite the second being better (objectively speaking).

So yes, the iPhone if you are already hooked on Android is not a high priority, at all.

Also you make the assumption that Apple will stay fashionable and desirable. Already this is turning out to be less and less so.

[Abdul Muis]

@Thereyougo,

Somehow I think I know you *wink* *wink*, but, here I go....

"No. They cant afford to have an iPhone but they will change to iPhone when get richer. There is no loyalty to Android. It is very silly to think like that. It would be same that today you can afford to only drive a Lada and not the BMW and when you become richer you would stay loyal to Lada and not to change your car to BMW even though you can afford it."

You think with iSheep mentality. You think that android = bad, therefore, if one's have the money, they will always buy iPhone. That's iSheep mentality.

_

"Total BS. The point why you have SMART phone is that you do not need to concentrate to fiddle it all the time that the phone takes care of it by itself (ie Apple fixes the bugs and gives the updates to you regularly). Why would you stay loyal to piece of Android shit that all the time consumes your energy and time?? You want to have something that dont bother you all the time."

TROLLING??? C'mon... Give a reasonable answer that can make this discussion interesting!!! As I said, some of the user not upgrading to android, not because they were poor. But it could be someone who can easily afford US$1000 phone, but he's not interested in owning one, because he's not technologically savvy. And the thing with this crowd is, once they use one product, they won't stop using it.

_

"That is already solved. My old iPhone goes to the next child and then her iPhone goes to the youngest one. This happens all the time all over the world.

The iSheep thinking is that the next 2 billion crowd is poor, and..... as I said, it's not because this crowd is poor, but because NOT OLD ENOUGH.

[Huber]

These fake news-like misinformation of the resident iSheep becomes more and more boring over the time. This has been debunked time and time again, but they repeat the same bullshit over and over again.

The main points are:

- Android phones don't consume more time for maintenance than iPhones, except if the user wishes to. You can even buy a low-midrange phone like the Motorola G4 and simply use it. There is no need to tinker around per se. It just works.

- iOS has a bigger "ecosystem"

This narrow-minded point is brough up by people time and time again. The fault in this line of thought is that such people define "ecosystem" by how much money Apple and Google earns with their respective platform.

But the ecosystems are much bigger than this, just 2 examples:

-- You have suppliers for accessories like standard USB cables, wall chargers, cases and whatnot. These suppliers are part of the exosystem even if Apple and Google don't receive a single cent from them

-- App developers who work for third parties: The classic example is a bank which hires independent developers to develop their banking app. The app itself is free, so no profit for Google and Apple.

Nowadays this goes much further: When you buy some network-enabled device like a receiver, a new heating system for your house or an IoT-device, more often than not you can download an app for this. I e.g. can control my Denon receiver via an app, my IP TV receiver etc.

So more and more apps aren't made to make money with by directly charging money, but to provide additional features for businesses which aren't in the mobile sector. The developers are of course paid, but Apple and Google aren't affected. At all.

-Apple caters to the "rich", so you can make more money in the Apple ecosystem. Actually, this is especially laughable:

-- My last 3 phones were as expensive as an iPhone, but I wouldn't touch an Apple device with a 9 foot pole. When I visited India last December, I hardly saw any iPhones, even when meeting with top managers. Of course they carried expensive Samsungs instead.

-- When your target audience isn't "rich", you don't give a rat's ass about iPhone users. This is not only valid for countries like India, but also for other countries with a higher iPhone market share: If a company has 98% of their customers on Android, the management will think twice about supporting 2 platforms

-- As others have already stated, mobile gamers in Asia spend more money on games than American mobile gamers on average. Since most of Asia is almost purely Android and the Asian market grows faster, it is only a matter of time until Android has a higher game revenue than Apple

[Abdul Muis]

@Huber

"-- As others have already stated, mobile gamers in Asia spend more money on games than American mobile gamers on average. Since most of Asia is almost purely Android and the Asian market grows faster, it is only a matter of time until Android has a higher game revenue than Apple"

From: http://images.response.unity3d.com/Web/Unity/%7Bbfd9d8a6-823f-4c7d-a185-b7c01a165041%7D_Unity-2016-Mobile-and-VR-games-year-in-review.pdf ......Pages 7

My math maybe rusty, but let's try....
1. . According to this research, 60% of mobile gaming revenue come from Asia
2.a. It also said that China Android user is 8x more valueable than iOS user.
2.b. It also said that China Android user bring US$25/user
3. . We know that Japan is about 50-50 on android-iOS
4. . Korea have around 90% android user.
5. . Other than country mentioned above, android is 95%.

Do you think that Asia Game revenue android vs. iOS could be as high as 80%?
**IF** Asia Game revenue is 80% android, then, it means 80% x 60% = Asia contribute 48% of Android game revenue.
Which mean, that Android ALREADY BEAT iOS!!!

[Per "wertigon" Ekström]

@Wayne:

You are still assuming that profits will always stay with iOS.

Network effects will ensure that this balance will shift and is indeed already shifting.

Apple may have 70% of the premium segment - but this segment is, of course, shrinking!

How do I know this? Because Apple was essentially flat from last year in unit sales. If they were 50% last year and 70% now, and Apple is premium only and did not grow their units significantly, then the math tells us - the premium segment is shrinking.

Math don't lie Wayne. :)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

John W?

Did YOU think THAT was a smart move? Same rules now to you - your next posting is an apology, this is not an open forum, this is my BLOG where I invite you to comment and where I share VOLUNTARILY very VALUABLE information nobody else gives out. Your move, John. You appreciate my voluntary free info - and you apologize. Or I delete your history.

As you chose fit to challenge me on MY BLOG, I of course deleted TEN of YOUR comments (vs 5 of Wayne's). Think very hard John W, what is in your next comment. It better make me happy again or you're history.

Tomi Ahonen

[Abdul Muis]

@PWE

"How do I know this? Because Apple was essentially flat from last year in unit sales. If they were 50% last year and 70% now, and Apple is premium only and did not grow their units significantly, then the math tells us - the premium"

Great observation!!!! Is this the reason why all the iPhone supporter here suddenly going wild like they consuming Raiden Global food?

[Per "wertigon" Ekström]

@Wayne:

The premium segment is already shrinking. The numbers do not lie. It will keep shrinking, but also Apple will in time also be regarded less and less as a premium brand, because network effects. Maybe not in all markets, but in many.

Will there always be people that will love the Apple platforms? No doubt. There are still people who love the Amiga platform, 30 years after it's relevance in PC died out.

But will Apple be able to cling to that 10% market share? No. Not a chance.

[Per "wertigon" Ekström]

@Wayne:

2015: Apple sells 230M units and captures 50% of premium market.
2016: Apple sells 215M units and captures 70% of premium market.

230 / 0.5 means 460M units are the premium market.
215 / 0.7 means 307M units are the premium market.

This is what those numbers mean. This means the premium pie 2016 is smaller... By one third!

So, I sure hope Apple isn't cornering the premium market. Because that means people are starting to settle for phones below that price - outside the Apple distortion field.