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Smartphone Stats: Full Year 2017 Top 10, OS Installed Base and Everything Else You Ever Wanted

It is time for the annual picture. Smartphone races. This blog is the only place where you get the full Top 10 market shares every quarter (for free). And the installed base of the smartphones. And the OS wars. With no registration. No ads. No spam. Just the facts... Plus as a bonus, my analysis as well...

Let us start with the big picture. And before I do that, I need to tell you that I have changed the way I count one of the players. If you are not a regular reader of this blog, you probably never heard of 'BBK' before. But if you follow smartphones, you probably have noticed the rapid rise of Vivo and Oppo out of China. Well, BBK is their parent and yes a giant Chinese electronics company that first started out making DVD players etc. Over the past few years they've moved quite aggressively into the smartphone races.

BBK is to smartphones what say General Motors is to cars. GM sells the popular Chevrolet and Pontiac and Cadillac brand cars (and used to also own the Opel brand in Germany, Vauxhall in Britain, Holden in Australia etc). Yet 'GM' or General Motors generally is not a consumer car brand (although GM does sell trucks and heavier vehicles by that brand). Similarly BBK doesn't use the BBK brand to sell phones. It sells the increasingly popular Vivo and Oppo mass market brands that are major brands througout Asia, and are starting to appear on other continents as well. And what would be the Cadillac brand of BBK? It is OnePlus, the third major phone brand of the Chinese corporation (which has others as well). So to be clear. In the past, I listed BBK brands separately (Vivo and Oppo were large enough to fit into the Top 10). But that is not fair, as I count Motorola smartphone sales into Lenovo numbers, and Palm and Blackberry sales into TCL numbers together with Alcatel and their other brands. And we count Nubia into ZTE, etc. So we really do need to handle BBK as a manufacturer and do the proper global market share with the two big BBK brands added together. But do not despair. I will ALSO now break out the brand-based Top 10, as a separate table. So you get (of course) the best info, via the CDB blog. Your favorite source of all mobile industry stats... Now to the big table. Who won the year? (That was no contest, it is the same brand that wins this race every year - and by a mile)

2017 FULL YEAR SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURER SALES STATISTICS

Rank . Manufacturer (Brands) . . . 2017 units . . Share . . 2016 units . . Share . . 2015 units . . Share

1 (1)  . Samsung (Galaxy) . . . . . . . 317.2 M . . . . 21.1% . . 308.9 M . . . 20.8% . . .322.0 M . . . 22.4%
2 (3) . . BBK (Vivo Oppo OnePlus). 225.0 M . . . . 14.9% . . 174.0 M . . . 11.8% . . . . 85.0 M . . . . 5.7% 
3 (2)  . Apple (iPhone) . . . . . . . . . . 215.8 M . . . . 14.3% . . 215.4 M . . . 14.6% . . . 231.4 M . . . 16.1%
4 (4)  . Huawei (Honor) . . . . . . . . . 153.0 M . . . . 10.2% . . 139.0 M . . . . 9.4% . . . 108.0 M . . . . 7.5%
5 (7)  . Xiaomi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.5 M . . . . . 6.1%. . . 54.3 M . . . . .3.7%. . . . 71.0 M . . .  . 4.9% 
6 (5)  . ZTE (Nubia)  . . . . . . . . . . . . 60.8 M . . . . . 4.0% . . . 57.0 M . . . . 3.8%  . . . 57.2 M . . . . 4.0%
7 (6)  . LG  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55.0 M . . . . . 3.7% . . . 55.1 M . . . . 3.7% . . . . 59.7 M . . . . 4.2%
8 (8)  . Lenovo (Motorola)  . . . . . . . 48.9 M . . . . . 3.2% . . . 53.1 M . . . . 3.6% . . . . 76.3 M . . . . 5.3%
9 (-) . . Gionee  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39.0 M . . . . . 2.6% . . . - - -  . . . . . . - - -  . . . . . - - -  . . . . . . - - -  
10 (9) . TCL (Alcatel, Blackberry..) . 24.7 M . . . . . 1.6% . . . 38.0 M . . . . 2.6%. . . . 43.5 M . . . . 3.0%
Other  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285.6 M . . . . 19.0%
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1,505.5 M . . . . . . . . . . . 1,480.9 M . . . . . . . . . 1,437.3 M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting 27 Feb 2018
This data may be freely used and repeated


Congrats Samsung. So for the actual global manufacturers, the big change is that Apple falls from number 2 slot last year (a position it has held since year 2012 after Nokia fell and Samsung jumped past Apple to take the top slot) to number 3 for year 2017. Note that Apple is on a downward trend from a peak of 20% global market share 6 years ago, to the last three years of 16%, 15% and now 14%. I expect Apple to drop to 13% by the end of this year, 2018. Meanwhile BBK the new number two? They have had a rocketship ride to number 2 and only breached the Top 10 three years ago. They were ranked third at the end of 2016 (with the revised accounting, by which their separate brands Vivo, Oppo and OnePlus are added together, as I have done for the above table). But look out Apple! Lurking in the wings is manufacturer brand number 4. Huawei! The Chinese giant is steadily growing, and last 3 years has gone from 8% to 9% to 10%. This year we will likely see a single quarter where Huawei outsells Apple, likely one of the summer quarters. And next year (2019) we'll see the fight for 12% market share, will Apple hold that third ranking or will Huawei snatch it? The trend says Apple will lose its share by 2020 the latest and fall to fourth rank among smartphone manufacturing companies globally.

By the way, for those who 'hate Apple' (and please don't count me into that group..). If you want to see the glass really really less than half full... Apple sales were flat in a year that was flat. Out of the Top 5, all other 4 manufacturers GREW their sales - Samsung by 3%, BBK by 29%, Huawei by 10% and Xiaomi by 70%. Don't fall into the silly trap to think, that Apple is somehow 'doing fine'. It is LOSING the battle. Market share down AGAIN and now the reality is starting to come home to various developers, especially in the Emerging World, that actually, all you need is Android. This is EXACTLY the same disaster that hit the Mac world back way before Apple went close to bankruptcy. The believers were finally forced to face reality, that even as the Mac was far superior - as a user interface - to the early Windows - the Windows personal computers were 'good enough' and most users wanted the major platform. And then the developers stopped supporting the tiny platform. The Mac OS never had 10% market share. iOS touched twice that, but is headed towards similar levels to ten percent. Currently at 14% and still declining. Now, if Apple 'wanted to' - it COULD reverse this decline. But will they do that, or will they just continue to milk the rich users, until the users get fed up with paying the iTax? Who knows. Currently Apple is the richest company in the world. It won't remain that if it continues to abuse its customers. But still today, iPhone loyalty and customer satisfaction is incredjbly strong. Apple has a long time to figure out what it wants. Yet, as I've said for years, the mistake of abandoning the future will come back to haunt Apple. Now most sane people see that iOS is a niche market, and only Android is a mass market. I told you so ten years ago...

As to the industry, growth is down to snail's pace now. The global market for smartphones grew only by 1.8% last year vs 2016. The earlier part of the year showed better growth but the final quarter had a significant slowing down, all three of the major analyst houses that reported Q4 numbers had the quarter down vs the year before. As to the total annual sales, the three houses (Gartner, IDC and Strategy Analytics) don't quite agree. One thinks annual sales declined while tow think they grew. I use their numbers for the average of total market size, as always. Then I use my own sources and public sources to allocate the market shares on a 'best fit' basis. Where companies are brave enough to give a true number (like well, it seems we're down to Apple and Huawei) we use those. Else I start from analyst reports and then use my best judgment for what math works best. Well. That is the manufacturer 'race'. Let's do the new 'brand race' table here as well, where we separate out the various brands like Vivo, Oppo for BBK and Motorola out of Lenovo, etc..:


 

2017 FULL YEAR SMARTPHONE BRAND SALES STATISTICS

Rank . Brand . . . . 2017 units . . Share . . 2016 units . . Share . . 2015 units . . Share

1 (1)  . Samsung  . . 317.2 M . . . . 21.1% . . 308.9 M . . . 20.8% . . .322.0 M . . . 22.4% 
2 (2)  . Apple  . . . . . 215.4 M . . . . 14.3% . . 215.4 M . . . 14.6% . . 231.4 M . . . 16.1%
3 (3)  . Huawei . . . . 153.0 M . . . . 10.2% . . 139.0 M . . . . 9.4% . . . 108.0 M . . . . 7.5%
4 (4)  . Oppo . . . . . . 116.7 M . . . . 7.7% . . . . 91.0 M . . . . 6.1%  . . . 50.0 M . . . . 3.5% 
5 (5)  . Vivo . . . . . . . . 96.3 M . . . . 6.4% . . . . 73.0 M . . . . 4.9% . . . . - - - . . . . . . - - -
6 (8)  . Xiaomi . . . . . . 92.5 M . . . . 6.1%. . . . 54.3 M . . . . .3.7%. . . . 71.0 M . . . . 4.9% 
7 (6)  . ZTE * . . . . . .  54.7 M . . . . 3.6% . . . . 57.0 M . . . . 3.8%  . . . 57.2 M . . . . 4.0%
8 (7)  . LG  . . . . . . . . 55.0 M . . . . .3.7% . . . . 55.1 M . . . . 3.7% . . . 59.7 M . . . . 4.2%
9 (9)  . Lenovo ** . . . 39.6 M . . . . 2.6% . . . . 53.1 M . . . . 3.6% . . . . 76.3 M . . . . 5.3%
10 (-) . Gionee . . . . . 39.0 M . . . . . 2.6% . . . - - -  . . . . . . - - -  . . . . . - - -  . . . . . . - - - 
Other . . . . . . . . . . . 326.1 M . . . . 27.6%
TOTAL . . . . . . . . .1,505.5 M . . . . . . . . . 1,480.9 M . . . . . . . . .1,437.3 M
 * ZTE without Nubia brand; ** Lenovo without Motorola brand
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting 27 Feb 2018
This data may be freely used and repeated

So in the brand wars, Samsung safely number 1, holding market share even at 21% vs last year same. Apple slowly fading, now down to 14% again one point down vs the previous year. The Top 5 stays the same as the year before. Xiaomi doing a second run at the Top 5, just misses it. Gionee is the new brand that kicks out Alcatel/TCL from last year.

BTW how good was my guidance? I told you in November what the Top 5 will look like for the full year. Three months ago I said that the Top 5 will be Samsung 21%, Apple 14%, Huawei 10%, Oppo 8% and Vivo 6% and that Xiaomi would be 6th. How did it turn out? EXACTLY that. Sammy 21, iPhone 14, Honor 10, Oppo and Vivo 8 and 6. And Xiaomi was left to 6th ranking.. Yeah.. Perhaps I do know a bit about this industry...


OS WARS

So what about the operating systems? That war was won years ago by Android. We know that Apple sold 14.3% of all the smartphones in 2017. That is the OS market share for iOS. Android is nearly the rest. There is less than 0.5% of 'other' OS platforms which nearly all have died. So Android has.. about 85.4%. So Android sells 6 times as many smartphones than Apple. This is just the smartphone new sales (bearing in mind, that Apple share is contiuously declining and Android continuously growing) but there also are 'non smartphone' devices that you should add, to get the full reach of a platform. For Android we have tablets, smart watches, TV sets etc. For iOS it is the iPads and Apple Watches and whatnot. But this blog isn't about all tech platforms, I focus on where the most relevant tech is - the only universal gadget on the planet - mobile phones - and their evolution (= smartphones) and the various tech we do with them from voice calls and messaging to the cameraphone to the mobile internet (and haha, 'apps' which is only games if you want to make money) to the future of such things as mobile money and Augmented Reality etc. For mobile phones, 79% of all phones sold in year 2017 were smartphones. I have revised my estimates of when the last dumbphones will be sold, and now look at year 2021 as the target year, when 'all' ie by Q4 of that year, more than 99% of all new phones sold would be smartphones. From that year, it will still be a couple of years further, until the installed base reaches 99% smartphones (because older phones remain in use). Which brings us conveniently to that topic of 'installed base'... how is that installed base of smartphones doing? Lets take another table


SMARTPHONE INSTALLED BASE AT END OF 2017 BY OPERATING SYSTEM

Rank . . OS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2017 units . . share . 2016 units . . share . . 2015 units . . share
1 (1) . .  Android  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,696 M . . . . 81% . . 2,560 M . . . . . 80% . . 2,079 M . . . . . 79%
a . . . . . . Pure Android/Play . . . ..  1,806 M . . . . 54%
b . . . . . . Forked Android/AOSP . . . 890 M . . . . 27%
2 (2) . .  iOS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 612 M . . . . 19%  . . . 602 M . . . . . 19% . . . . 505 M . . . . . 19%
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 M . . . . . 0% . . . . . 31 M . . . . . . 1% . . . . 56 M . . . . . . . 2%
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,316 M . . . . . . . . . . . 3,193 M  . . . . . . . . . . 2,640 M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting 27 Feb 2018
This data may be freely used and repeated


So the smartphone installed base is at 3.3 Billion devices globally. Four out of five smartphones globally now run on Android, one in five runs on iOS. Out of the app store reach, pure Android OS that can access Play Store now number 1.8 Billion devices which is 3 times the reach of iPhones that can access Apple's App Store. Out of all Android compatible devices, one third are forked AOSP devices, two thirds are 'pure' Android. Again with these numbers, remember these are only the smartphone reach. Tablets and other devices are excluded from both sides. Yes, once again only the CDB blog gives you the installed base race, not just the new sales. This is the relevant table obviously if you're any kind of developer.


Q4 NUMBERS

And last but not least, here is the final calendar quarter of the year, Q4 numbers. New sales. By Manufacturer.

BIGGEST SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURERS BY UNIT SALES IN Q4 2017

Rank . . . Manufacturer . Units . . . Market Share . Was Q3 2017 
1 (3) . . . Apple  . . . . . . . 77.3 M . . 19.1% . . . . . . . ( 12.2% ) 
2 (1) . . . Samsung . . . .  74.2 M . . 18.4% . . . . . . . ( 21.8% ) 
3 (2) . . . BBK *  . . . . . . . 56.7 M . . 14.0% . . . . . . . ( 16.4% )
4 (4) . . . Huawei  . . . . . . 41.6 M . . 10.3% . . . . . . . ( 10.2% ) 
5 (5) . . . Xiaomi  . . . . . .  28.0 M . . . 6.9% . . . . . . . (  7.3% ) 
6 (6) . . . ZTE ** . . . . . . . 16.6 M . . . 4.1% . . . . . . . (   4.3% )
7 (7) . . . LG  . . . . . . . .  . 13.7 M . . . 3.6% . . . . . . . (   3.6% ) 
8 (8) . . . Lenovo *** . . . . 12.5 M . . . 3.1% . . . . . . . (   3.3% )
9 (9) . . . Gionee . . . . . . .10.1 M . . . 2.5% . . . . . . .  (   2.6% )
10 (-) . . Coolpad . . . . . . . 5.4 M . . . 1.3% . . . . . . .  (   - - -  )
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67.7 M
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403.8 M

 * BBK includes Oppo, Vivo, Oneplus; ** ZTE includes Nubia; *** Lenovo includes Motorola
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting 27 Feb 2018
This data may be freely used and repeated

So that is the race in the latest quarter and once again the CDB blog is the only source that gives you a current Top 10. What is worth mentioning? Remember the iPhone annual sales pattern. There is no sudden surge by Apple. Samsung is SAFELY the largest smartphone maker (Annually) but for every year, the Christmas sales cycle produces the best quarter for Apple. Their share now declines in the next 3 quarters as it has done every year. I'm now adding Vivo, Oppo and the other BBK brands into the BBK manufacturer ranking. That brings Coolpad back into the Top 10. Note the sales level that gets you into the Top 10. It takes about 5.5 million smartphone sales. Our old pal Sony are at 4.0 million. TCL/Alcatel/Blackberry/Palm etc is at 4.2 million. And ahead of both... is the rapidly returning Nokia, via HMD, which is at roughly 4.4 million units by my estimate. They are going to make a run for a Top 10 position this year, and could breach the Top 10 ranking as early as by late summer data and hopefully by Christmas Quarter at least.

PS thanks to reader Gustavo Vera correcting me on the current status of the (ex) GM car brands... and Per "wertigon" Ekström for noticing the Q4 ranking error (numbers were correct but ranking order was wrong). I always appreciate the help of our readers.   :-)

Nokia HMD Comeback? First Year Finishes with 8.7 Million Smartphones Shipped and 1.0% Market Share by Year-End (Updated)

We have the first published report of Nokia HMD smartphone global sales, via Nokiamob website and the stats are reported by Counterpoint. They find Nokia HMD smartphones to have 1.0% market share at 4.15M units for Q4, worldwide.


UPDATE 14 FEB 2018 - Counterpoint the analyst has revised their Nokia HMD number from 4.15M to 4.4M units as per this story at Gadgets 360. I have updated the math based on the 4.4M story. The original article from Feb 3, had 4.15M as the Nokia number.


That gives us a good number to get the full year sales of the first year come-back for Nokia brand into smartphones. This is what we have, via IDC and Counterpoint numbers that have been published:

Nokia HMD Smartphone Sales By Quarter in Year 2017
Q1 . . . 0.1 million
Q2 . . . 1.4 million
Q3 . . . 2.8 million
Q4 . . . 4.4 million
Total . . 8.7 million smartphones shipped in 2017

Sources: Published numbers via IDC and Counterpoint, analysis by TomiAhonen Consulting 14 Feb 2018
This table may be freely shared

I want to thank two readers. My Twitter follower Stipe Hrzic aka @stipe1906 who tweeted about the story. And then also thanks to blog reader 'Sonan', who observed that Sony just sold 4.0 million smartphones and speculated, Nokia HMD may have already passed Sony for global smartphone sales. Thanks Sonan. It certainly seems like that has already happened in Q4.

Nokia HMD is at 1.0% market share globally. The level to return to Top 10 is roughly twice that, from about 2 percent market share. Nokia HMD has been growing at about 1.5 million units more sales per quarter for two quarters (with slight growth) and was adding more countries and networks still in Q4 of last year. We should see some more growth organically just with more distribution added. Then the heavier lifting will start. Some of the fans of Nokias had gotten their first phones back, and that excitement will subside. The sales reverts to more traditional sales and marketing issues. Need to invest in more marketing and especially get carriers/operators to support the Nokia HMD comeback. We may well see a slowing down of the growth rate now, after the first year of excitement. But for Nokia HMD to already pass Sony, that must be good news.

Now when will they pass 10 million units shipped? The current run rate is 1.5 million phones per month (4.4 million per quarter) and by that rate, sometime just about now, first week of February Nokia HMD will probably have passed their 10 millionth smartphone shipped, in their come-back. If so, we could expect Nokia HMD to celebrate that milestone at say Barcelona in a few weeks.

This was one analyst giving a Nokia HMD number. We may get others. Let's see how that goes. But there IS a serious come-back going on. Already now. Nokia is at 1% of global smartphone market and growing. I told you last year that 1% by the end of the year was well within their cards. And if so, then 2% by the end of this year, 2018, would be also plausible. And THAT would be on the brink of returning to the Top 10. We may see Nokia back as a brand in the big smartphone wars in about a year from now, if these early growth trends continue. That would be amazing!


UPDATE 14 FEB 2018 - So the same article with the updated Counterpoint number, gave also other details. They count Nokia current global market share at 1.0% and the rank of Nokia brand among Top 10 smartphones as number 11. Meanwhile another analyst, Trendforce, has counted 11.5 Million as the final Nokia HMD smartphone number for year 2017 (significantly more than my count of 8.7M), and they also have Nokia currently at 1.0% market share, but Trendforce has given their projection that they expect Nokia to be at about 20 million smartphones sold this year 2018. Good signs... 


I will still wait, in case any other analysts report any Nokia numbers. When we have all data in, I'll do a forecast for this year. 

Apple Results: Flat Sales vs Year Before, Market Share Down One Point (Yet Again)

Apple results are out (yes, world's most profitable company. This blog is NOT about profits or wall street stock performance). So how did Apple iPhone do in the smartphone wars? Lost another point of market share last year. That is what it did. Apple sales 77.3 million units in calendar Quarter 4 ie October-December Quarter. That is down 1% vs the same quarter last year (while the industry grew 5%). Currently Apple has its best moment of the year as the new phone models came out, and only manages 17% quarterly market share (previous years the Christmas Quarter had done better than 21% even). This is down from 18% market share this same quarter a year ago.

For full year numbers, Apple just barely inched better sales than the year before. It was up by 400,000 units from 215.4M to 215.8M but that IS growth, technically. In reality it is less than half of one percent - so it is flat vs year before. Don't kid yourself. Apple annual sales were flat. And considering its headwinds this past year, that is doing pretty well, all things considered. But market share, that is a different story. Apple annual market share lost another point and is now at 14%.

For the record, the Top 5 smartphone manufacturing companies globally for the year 2017 are:

1 Samsung about 320 million units and 21% market share
2 BBK (=Vivo, Oppo & OnePlus brands, from China) about 250 million units, 16% market share
3 Apple, 216 million units, 14% market share
4 Huawei, 153 million units, 10% market share
5 Xiaomi, about 90-95 million units, 6% market share

And for Apple watchers, at one point Apple did 20% of all smartphones sold. The last three years? 16%, 15% and now 14%. I think we see the trend, eh?

And obviously, it means that currently iOS only sells 14% of all new smartphones, constantly dropping in share, as Android is at 86% of new sales.

Separately, that 77.3M gives us an intriguing wait for the estimates of Samsung's final Q4 number. I have it roughly estimated at 77.0M. And obviously if I happened to hit that number, then Apple would be larger than Samsung for the Q4 quarter (but obviously not for the full year). This means that the shortly-announced Q4 numbers from the major analyst houses will be an interesting news cycle. Some may be tempted to slightly push Samsung estimates down, to get Apple above Sammy, to get a good news story. And I'm not suggesting any reputable analyst house would do that. It may very well be, that Apple did beat Samsung in the Christmas sales period. Now, if I was Samsung, AND if my number was above 77.3M, I would come out with my official number. Samsung very very rarely release any official or semi-official counts of their phone business. BUT obviously if Samsung is below 77.3, then they'd just continue their normal policy of not releasing the number. Some intrigue there. Lets see how the big analyst houses count Sammy and take that average, and see who won the Christmas sales period last year. It will be nail-bitingly close...

Ok. Remember in the comments, no discussion about Apple's obscene levels of profits, yes they are the most profitable company of all time. This blog is not a Wall Street investment blog. We are interested in the tech platforms and whatever hope some silly analysts had, of Apple somehow winning the platform wars, that myth was busted years ago. Apple's iOS is a niche OS platform for rich customers mostly in the Western and Industrialized countries. Android is the only smartphone platform of global and almost universal reach.