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Samsung and Apple both shipped fewer smartphones year-over-year during the third quarter

By Alan Friedman

Updated: Oct 27, 2016, 2:41 AM

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Samsung remained on top of the smartphone market during the third quarter

IDC just reported its third quarter market share numbers for the smartphone industry. Overall shipments rose a very small 1% from the 359.3 million handsets shipped in the 2015 third quarter, to this year's figure of 362.9 million units shipped. Despite delivering 13.5% fewer handsets in the quarter, Samsung remained the world's largest manufacturer with 72.5 million units in transit from July through September. Samsung now controls 20% of the market, down from the 23.3% share it owned during last year's third quarter when it shipped 83.8 million phones.

Even though Apple's shipments of iPhone units were off 5.3% year-over-year, it still was able to cut into Samsung's lead from 35.8 million in Q3 2015, to 27 million in this year's third quarter. Apple owns 12.5% of the smartphone market, down from the 13.3% market share it had during the third quarter of last year. 45.5 million iPhone handsets were shipped by Apple from July through September this year, down from the 48 million units that were in transit the previous year.

Chinese manufacturers Huawei, Oppo and Vivo were third, fourth and fifth respectively. All three were able to report higher year-over-year handset shipments during the three-month period. Huawei delivered 33.6 million handsets, up from 27.3 million last year. The company now owns 9.3% of the global smartphone market.

Oppo had a huge 121.6% jump in smartphone shipments during the third quarter. Deliveries rose from 11.4 million units to 25.3 million and the company more than doubled its market share from 3.2% to 7%. Vivo also had a triple digit increase in market share from Q3 of 2015 to Q3 of 2016 (102%). Shipments more than doubled from the 10.5 million phones it shipped during Q3 2015, to the 21.2 million it delivered during this year's third quarter. Market share doubled during the same time, from 2.9% to 5.8%.

"Samsung’s market dominance in the third quarter was unchallenged in the short term even with this high-profile Galaxy Note 7 recall, but the longer term impact on the Samsung brand remains to be seen. If the first recall was a stumble for Samsung, the second recall of replacement devices face-planted the Note series. In a market that is otherwise maturing, Christmas has come early for vendors looking to capitalize with large-screened flagship alternatives like the Apple iPhone 7 Plus and Google Pixel."-Melissa Chau, associate research director, IDC

source: IDC via VentureBeat

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Alan, an ardent smartphone enthusiast and a veteran writer at PhoneArena since 2009, has witnessed and chronicled the transformative years of mobile technology. Owning iconic phones from the original iPhone to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, he has seen smartphones evolve into a global phenomenon. Beyond smartphones, Alan has covered the emergence of tablets, smartwatches, and smart speakers.

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