Communities Dominate Brands

Of iPhones and Fake News - We have rare opportunity to discover bastard lying deceptive journalists and writers in tech

The past week had a rare ‘perfect test’ for any tech reader, to evaluate most tech writers they follow. It was a test of journalistic integrity (and of competence, and possibly of deliberate intent to deceive you, the reader).

This is the test. Did your writer report about iPhone latest Quarter sales data, vs Samsung’s Galaxy series of smartphones, correctly and honestly, or did your writer try to mislead you. Were you actually a victim of ‘Fake News’ (as many US voters were when voting for Donald Trump). This is really a simple test and it will tell you categorically, is you preferred tech writer honest and fair, or is the writer biased and peddling fake news at you.

This is the REALITY of the race in smartphones. Apple sold 215.4 million smartphones (ie iPhones) in year 2016. Samsung sold 308.5 million (Samsung leads by 93.1 million units, its not even close. Samsung is 43% bigger !!!). In year 2015 Apple sold 231.4 million smartphones vs Samsung 322.0 million. Samsung sold 90.6 million more (Samsung was 39% bigger than Apple). The Christmas Quarter sales period is an anomaly in smartphone market shares because Apple has just released its latest iPhone model and Samsung will not release its new Galaxy until in the early Spring. So at any year, the single best quarter for Apple is the Christmas Quarter vs Samsung. Similarly the worst Quarter for Apple vs Samsung is the Summer June Quarter where Samsung sells about twice as many smartphones as Apple. The one quarter story is not the REALITY. It is a temporary illusion.

Here is your simple test of your tech writer - please go re-read your fave tech writers to see how they reported iPhone vs Samsung race one week ago. If the writer said ‘Apple is ahead but this is temporary’ OR if the writer said ‘Apple is ahead for the Quarter but Samsung is bigger for the full year’ - THAT is fair reporting. Most writers wrote that story. That is the accurate reporting. That writer is doing a reasonably accurate job and cannot be accused of ‘Fake News’ even if the story HEADLINE may have said something silly like ‘Apple is now biggest smartphone maker’.

But if the story ONLY mentions that Apple has now sold more than Samsung, but does not say ‘temporarily’ or say ‘full year Samsung is 41% bigger’ or that this is an abnormal market condition - THAT TECH WRITER IS BULLSHITTING YOU. That tech writer is a charlatan! That tech writer is an imbecille, an incompetent fool - or worse - that tech writer is DELIBERATELY trying to fool you. Deliberately trying to create an Apple-friendly illusion that there is some iMiracle happening in the market share.

Understand the REALITY. In Year 2016, Samsung’s worst tech year in its smartphone history, with Explod-a-pants Galaxy Note models, even then, Samsung PULLED AHEAD OF APPLE !!!! That is simple math. In year 2015, Samsung was 90.6 million smartphones sold per year bigger than Apple's iPhone. One year later, in year 2016, Samsung became 93.1 million smartphones bigger. SAMSUNG'S LEAD IS GROWING. Any idiot reporter trying to tell you otherwise sees it is raining outside and tries to insist the news is, that its a sunny day instead. They are LYING TO YOU. Apple is not gaining on Samsung. Even in its worst year, Samsung is putting MORE DISTANCE between iPhone and Samsung. ANY STORY that suggests Apple is GAINING - is MISLEADING YOU !!!

Yes, for the full year 2016, vs 2015. Samsung sold 90.6 million more smartphones in 2015 than Apple’s iPhone but even in Samsung’s Annus Horribilis, they managed to INCREASE THEIR LEAD (modestly) vs Apple’s iPhone and now lead Apple by 93.1 million. Samsung INCREASED ITS LEAD by two and an half million units. Apple is NOT CATCHING UP to Samsung - Samsung is PULLING AWAY.

What happened at the Christmas Quarter is an ANOMALY. Its like in car racing, where they have refuelling. If the lead car (car leading the race) pulls in first to refuel, and say it takes 15 seconds to refuel, its possible the guy behind him, who was say 10 seconds behind, now ‘takes the lead’ - by about 5 seconds - but only TEMPORARILY - because that second car ALSO has to be refuelled, after which the order is restored and the leader is back to about a 15 second lead (assuming of course, neither team has a major mishap in refuelling and the driver’s don’t have some major super-duper excellent run or rival has a major problem). Apple is NOT tied with Samsung. Samsung sells 41% more smartphones, sold 39% more smartphones in year 2015, sold 41% more smartphones in its bad year, and will sell at least 40% possibly 45% more smartphones this year than Apple. There is no close contest whatsoever. This is not like Coca Cola vs Pepsi. This is not like Toyota vs Volkswagen. This is not like Boeing and Airbus. No. There is no close contest! Samsung is nearly half bigger than Apple. If your tech writer wrote a story about the new statistics just out this past week, that iPhone has for one quarter outsold Samsung’s smartphones - and the tech writer was honest about it - you know you have a writer with integrity who understands this industry. There is no gray area in this - the EXACT same sources sited, the analyst houses who gave the Q4 numbers - in the SAME PRESS RELEASES also give the full-year numbers. So its either a totally incompetent tech writer or it is a deliberate intent to deceive you!

If your tech writer told you that Apple iPhone sold more than Samsung smartphones - but did NOT tell you this is temporary, or that in annual sales Samsung is the giant - that tech writer is a FRAUDULENT BASTARD BULLSHIT ARTIST. You need to immediately stop reading him or her. Forever! Block him or her from your feed. That writing is not helping you understand anything, it is POISONING YOUR MIND with blatant lies. It is PROPAGANDA. You are being fed FAKE NEWS. In most tech stories there is some ‘gray area’ but this is one of those rare areas where there is zero gray area. The EXACT same sources quoted, make that point VERY CLEARLY that Samsung for the full year is MASSIVELY BIGGER. This is crystal-clear. Samsung is 41% bigger than Apple and Samsung GAINED last year, Apple is NOT CATCHING up and any tech writer who suggests the race is tied - is BULLSHITTING YOU. Because the EXACTLY press release about market shares HAD THE TRUTH, any 'tech writer' who misleads you about the real race - has no excuse. There is no gray area today. This is a clear-cut case of incompetence (or deliberate misleading).

So sayeth the Stats Police of the Mobile Industry. Listed here below are some of hte tech writers who are incompetent or are deliberately trying to deceive you. As is our policy on the CDB blog, we do not provide links to articles with misleading or wrong statistics, they should not be rewarded. You can find these incompetent writers if you Google them. Stop reading them.

Anyone who wants the REAL numbers of the handset industry knows the best stats are in the TomiAhonen Phone Book 2016, just out a month ago. See it here: TomiAhonen Phone Book 2016.


INCOMPETENT TECH WRITERS PEDDLING FAKE NEWS:
Shara Tibken - CNet
Tim Bradshaw - Financial Times
Tiernan Ray - Barrons
Brian M Wolfe - App Advice
Adam Levine-Weinberg - Motley Fool
Lisa Johnston - Twice
Hawley Tsukayama - Washington Post

(This is not a comprehensive list, just the first few I spotted who clearly are Fake News peddlers - SHAME ON YOU! Go correct your story and I will remove your name from this list, else, SHAME ON YOU FOREVER for deliberately bullshitting your readers!)

Celebrating 15 Years of TomiAhonen Consulting with CDB Blog Readers & My Twitter Followers - Giving everybody free version of previous TomiAhonen Almanac 2015, unedited, not copy-protected, full unrestricted pdf file 212 pages & 105 charts & tables

Last October my Consultancy passed its 15th year anniversary. Since then I celebrated here on the blog with some pictures and memories. I also sent some gifts to various clients of mine and friends and colleagues, as part of the Finnish tradition of 'Pikkujoulu' little Christmas with little gifts, around late November and December. Now its time to do the celebration with the loyal readership here on this blog, and my increasing following on Twitter. So in another local tradition, more relevant to my current home - in China they celebrate gift-giving at the Lunar New Year in late January and early February (the week-long celebration just ending). And as part of that tradition, I'll share something valuable with all of you. Everybody gets the Almanac, full, unrestricted and unedited. All the stats you ever hoped to have. But not the current edition, I am giving everybody the one year old edition (as of now, for a few more weeks, before the next edition comes out). So yes, the current TomiAhonen Alamanac is the 2016 edition. I am giving you all the 2015 edition. This one for free:






Yes, you all receive the full 212 pages, all 105 tables and charts and facts. Its not up-to-the-minute latest stats no, but its still a pretty darned good value getting every stat, even if its one edition old by now. I am not posting the file here on the blog. I have posted it onto the ebook publishing site Lulu.com where you can download the full pdf file. Just go to this link: Freeware Version of TomiAhonen Almanac 2015 Full Edition.

Note that the new edition costs 9.99 Euros ($13.99 US dollars, 8.99 UK Pounds). I have currently about 17,000 followers on Twitter and they too will all receive this gift. If everybody were to download the new eBook, the value of that potential gift would be about 170,000 Euros or about $200,000 dollars. I'm not giving the current version, but even the one-year older version is worth something. If we say the data in it is only worth half, then in rough terms, the value of this gift would be about $100,000 dollars. Isn't that a nice little 'Chinese New Year's Gift' for you all loyal readers of the CDB blog and my Twitter follower digital family too. Note, the file is totally unrestricted, you can save files to all your devices. The licence is a single-user freeware shareware licence that you can share! The only limitation is that you cannot 'publish' the ebook (and not sell it, and not edit the pdf file of course). So yes, you can even send individual copies to your friends, but you cannot "publish" the pdf file on your own site or on Facebook or Twitter etc. So yes, you may share it but just don't save the file onto a public site. But isn't that fair? You not only get the ebook pdf file totally free of the single best data source of all mobile industry related stats, on the planet; but you can save multiple copies to all your devices, and you can share it with any of your colleagues and friends too. Thats what I call a nice gift in terms of mobile statistics... Get your free TomiAhonen Almanac 2015 Shareware edition from Lulu.com now.

I do not spam you, I do not collect your emails for this like some other 'experts' do when they give out 'free' items. This is genuinely just a gift. This blog has no ads, never had and never will have. This blog has no registration, never had, never will. I am not going to sell this blog ever, so while we've passed 6 million page views, this blog is exactly as its always been. I honestly am simply celebrating 15 years of TomiAhonen Consulting and the wonderful life it has given me. So thank you. And like we did for my 10 year anniversary (and the 2010 edition of the Almanac back then), I'm putting out the free copy of the previous edition of the Almanac, full, unedited, all 212 pages, all 105 charts and tables, every data item you could hope and pray for, about mobile. All for free. Get yours now and tell your friends to get theirs too. Here is the link once more to Lulu.com and TomiAhonen Almanac 2015 Shareware free edition:

For those who like the 2015 numbers but then want the current numbers, I am of course still selling the 2016 edition; and as always this time of year, the new edition comes out soon in late February or early March, and so anyone who buys the 'current' 2016 edition today, gets two for one, gets also the 2017 edition in a few weeks when that is released, for the one price of only 9.99 Euros ($13.99 USD  or 8.99 UKP). Here is the link to the new Almanac 2016 page if you want to see that page (this is the paid version). 

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.

iPhone Q4 Numbers? A good quarter in a bad year. Q4 unit sales up 5% but full year 2016 sales down 7% vs 2015

Apple reported its December quarter (calendar Q4) numbers for the iPhone. They had a good Christmas in a bad year. Compared to the record-setting year of 2015, iPhone annual sales were now down 7% for 2016, but the last quarter, powered by the latest iPhone models, saw an increase vs the same quarter a year ago, by 5%. Actual units iPhone reported 78.3 million iPhones for Q4 and that means full year 2016 sales of iPhones were 215.4 million. I get preliminary market share estimates out of those numbers for the October-December Q4 calendar quarter for the iPhone at about 18% and for the full year 2016 it means about 15% market share for the iPhone. That is down one point from 2015 when iPhone had 16% market share for the year. Apple is yes, highly profitable in its smartphone business, but make no mistakes, I've told you on this blog forever, that Apple is not in any way threatening to become the world's largest smartphone maker (that is safely Samsung) and there is no immediate rival to snap on its heels at number three (Huawei is there, at about 9% market share but growing).

So we witnessed Peak iPhone haha, it was year 2015 when Apple shipped 231.4 million of its smartphones. Now the iPhone is settling into a steady pattern of around 15% to 16% if you want the rosy view (last 4 year market shares were all either 15% or 16%). Or if you want the alarmist view, then iPhone has fallen a quarter in four years from the peak level it had in 2012 when iPhone had 20% market share (its peak annual share). Even this 'good news' quarter of calendar Quarter 4, October-December 2016, was not 'that good' because in previous Calendar Q4 quarters in good years, the iPhone was easily able to go far above 20% in market share in the big Christmas sales quarters as the new model came out - as high as 23.4% in 2011 - and now the 18% level is really not that 'good news' as far as iHysteria goes, even the market share one year prior, in Q4 of 2015, was 19%.

Now on the iPhone 10 year history? Here is its annual market share development:
2007 . . .   5%
2008 . . .   9%
2009 . . . 14%
2010 . . . 16%
2011 . . . 19%
2012 . . . 20%
2013 . . . 16%
2014 . . . 15%
2015 . . . 16%
2016 . . . 15%
Source: TomiAhonen Phone Book 2016 and Apple official numbers
The above table may be freely shared


There was a clear peak. It has clearly passed. If the anomaly years 2011 and 2012 are removed, the rest of the past 8 years have been incredibly stable sales between lowest point of 14% and highest point of 16%. What that should tell you, is to expect similar performance in coming years as well.

Apple is not in any kind of danger whatsoever, it has highly desirable products and fierce loyalty. It has a huge return customer base. It has a vast array of money-making opportunities out of its iOS ecosystem of other devices that use its OS platform, so the iPhone feed sales of iPads, Macs, iTunes music store, the Apple Watch etc. And obviously Apple makes a nice killing also taxing the app developers on its app platform. Apple is by far the most successful tech company in history and arguably the most successful company in history, out of any industry. But its glory days seem to be over. There is nothing to take over for the immense fortune that was driven by the iPhone for a decade. The iPad was a far smaller opportunity and the Apple Watch is nothing even close. And Apple has no real 'second act' beyond the iPhone now (they may discover one at any moment, I just mean they don't have one now, in the market). There is no magical economy to drive iPhone to world domination. Its a niche product. A large immensely-profitable niche but it is a premium product exactly like how say a BMW is a premium car. It can sell in huge numbers but its not going to be the best selling car in the world, like a Toyota. There is not enough of a premium market for that kind of economic miracle. So reality is catching up to Apple. I have held the view that in the long run Apple will settle into a 10% market share out of all phones sold. This year about 2 Billion mobile phones (smartphones and dumbphones, combined) are sold. Apple is almost exactly at 10% right now (10.8% to be exact if the year ends up at exactly 2.0B new handsets sold). As the smartphone migration continues (in 2016 more than 3 out of every 4 phones sold was a smartphone) that means that today's annual market share for iPhone of about 15% of all smartphones, would settle pretty close to 10% of all phones by around say year 2021-ish. Give or take a percent and give or take a year. So don't expect huge growth for the iPhone in coming years either.

With that, of course if you need ALL the numbers of the smartphone wars, my brand new statistics ebook, TomiAhonen Phone Book 2016 just came out a month ago, it has all numbers current as of December 2016. See more here.