Smartphone Market Recovery Heading For ‘Slow, Steady Growth’

The global smartphone market grew by 6 percent year-on-year for its third consecutive quarter of growth in the second quarter, continuing its recovery from the weakest year in a decade as improving consumer sentiment and macroeconomic factors boosted sales, Counterpoint Research found.

Europe and Latin America grew the fastest, with both recording double-digit growth, while in China the resurgence of Huawei and an early start to the 618 shopping festival aided a “gradual” recovery, Counterpoint said.

The global top five brands remained the same, with Samsung remaining No. 1, Apple declining marginally and Xiaomi growing the fastest amongst the top five.

Vivo took the top spot in the two biggest smartphone markets, India and China, while Oppo narrowly folowed Vivo.

Intense competition

But the cumulative market share of the top five declined slightly under pressure from the next five, Huawei, Honor, Motorola and Transsion group brands including Tecno, Infinix and iTel.

Motorola Mobility, a subsidiary of China’s Lenovo, has gained quickly across regions to move up two ranks from last year and reach its highest quarterly global smartphone market share in a decade, according to the figures, while Honor and Tecno have been expanding into more regions.

The top ten brands controlled about 90 percent of the worldwide market, indicating consolidation and intensive competition, Counterpoint said.

“Almost all markets exhibited signs of growth and we remain optimistic for upcoming quarters,” said research director Tarun Pathak.

He said the company expects the market to show 4 percent growth overall this year.

Steady growth

Apple’s global sales remained flat, but it showed strong year-on-year growth in Europe and Latin America that compensated for low upgrade rates in the US and share loss in China due to Huawei’s renewed popularity.

Apple saw sales improve during the 618 shopping festival due to attractive discounts and in the second half Apple Intelligence AI features are expected to drive upgrade demand, the analyst house said.

Xiaomi, which has recently also found success with a range of electric vehicles, showed the strongest growth of the top five at 22 percent, gaining 2 percent share in the second quarter over a year earlier.

Analyst Ankit Malhotra said smartphones appear to have entered a new era of “slow and steady volume growth” driven by replacement cycles.

But he said revenues should grow faster than sales due to new high-end features such as foldables and generative AI driving sales of pricier devices.