Smartphone Sales Rise As Oppo Becomes A Top 5 Manufacturer

Smartphone sales were up 3.9 percent year on year to 349 million during the first quarter of 2015 as Chinese manufacturers continue to enjoy success in emerging markets, according to latest figures from Gartner.

Oppo is now one of the world’s five largest manufacturers, enjoying a 145 percent increase in sales over the past year. It ranks number four in the world, with a 4.6 percent marker share.

All change?

Although little known in the west, Oppo has enjoyed great success in China and other Eastern markets thanks to its Vivo line of smartphones, which were recently spotted in the latest Marvel superhero film, Captain America: Civil War.

Huawei and Xiaomi took third and fifth place respectively as their moves into Western markets began to pay dividends, backed up by strong domestic sales. Huawei performed particularly well, growing its market share from 5.4 percent in Q1 2015 to 8.3 percent in Q1 2016 as its expanded portfolio helps it infiltrate new markets.

As expected, Samsung took top spot, with sales boosted by the recently released Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge smartphones, which were revealed at Mobile World Congress (MWC) earlier this year. It saw a slight increase in units shipped from the same period last year, although market share actually fell to 23.2 percent.

However this was still enough to strengthen Samsung’s lead over great rival Apple, which took second place with 14.8 percent market share as iPhone sales fell. The company’s upgrade programme, which looks to refresh user’s devices each year, may yet lead to a resurgence next quarter, Gartner says.

In terms of the smartphone operating system (OS) market, Android unsurprisingly ruled supreme, regaining share over both iOS and Windows to achieve 84 per cent share.

This put it far ahead of its rivals, as iOS was only able to take 14.8 percent, with Windows on 0.7 percent and BlackBerry still clinging on with 0.2 percent.

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