The State of the Global Smartphone Market

Fueled by strong growth in emerging markets, global smartphone shipments reached a total of 337 million units in the second quarter of 2015. According to IDC, it was the second best quarter on record, trailing only the 2014 holiday quarter, when vendors had shipped 375 million units.

While Chinese manufacturers Huawei and Xiaomi continued to perform strongly both in their home market and abroad, market leader Samsung saw itself under intense pressure on both ends of the market. Strong iPhone sales hurt the Korean electronics giant in the high-end market while Chinese vendors continued to gain market share in the lower-cost segment. Samsung was the only vendor among the Top 5 to suffer a year-over-year decline in shipments and consequently saw its market share drop from 24.8 to 21.7 percent.