Emerging Markets Send Smartphone Sales To New Highs

The world’s demand for the latest smartphones has helped pushed sales to record levels, new data has found.

Worldwide sales to end users reached 336 million over the first quarter of 2015, an increase of 19.3 percent compared to the same period last year, thanks largely to continually strong demand from emerging markets, according to analyst firm Gartner.

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Gartner’s data also revealed that sales of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus pushed Apple ahead of Xiaomi to become the largest smartphone vendor in China for the first time.

iPhone sales grew 72.5 percent in Q1 2015 compared to last year, helping to make Greater China Apple’s largest market, outstripping even North America.

Android remained the leading global OS, powering 78.9 percent of new devices sold this quarter, a minor fall from last year, where it recorded 80.8 percent last year.

Samsung unsurprisingly made up the bulk of these sales, with 24.2 percent of the market.

Apple’s growth pushed it up to gain 17.9 percent of sales, followed by Lenovo with 5.6 percent, Huawei with 5.4 percent, and LG with 4.6 percent.

Samsung’s sales actually represented a decline compared to 2014, where it recorded 30.4 percent, although Gartner expects this to rise soon thanks to sales of the S6, S6 Edge and Alpha smartphones.

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