Samsung, Apple, LG, and Lenovo Saw Decline in Smartphone Shipments in 2016: Report

IC Insights has released a report on the global smartphone shipment, which revealed several insights and latest outlooks on the smartphone, automotive, PC/tablet and Internet of Things markets. In the report, the research firm showed a final 2016 ranking of the top smartphone leaders in terms of unit shipments.

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As shown in the image below, seven of the top 10, and 10 of the top 14 companies are headquartered in China with two South Korean (Samsung and LG) and one U.S. (Apple) and one Taiwanese company (Asus) making up the remainder of the companies listed. It is interesting to note that Oppo and Vivo, the two fastest growing smartphone suppliers on the list last year with each company growing almost 90 percent, are owned by the same China-based parent company—BBK Electronics.

Samsung and Apple dominated the smartphone market from 2014 through 2016. In total, these two companies shipped 555 million smartphones and held a combined 39 percent share of the total smartphone market in 2015. Although these two companies still shipped over one-half billion smartphones (526 million) in 2016, their combined smartphone unit market share dropped four percentage points to 35 percent at the end of 2016.

Samsung’s total smartphone unit sales were down by 4 percent in 2016 to 311 million units, a weak showing in an entire smartphone market that grew by 4 percent. With orders sagging by Apple’s pre-iPhone 7 smartphones (the iPhone 7 was first released on September 7, 2016), Apple’s total smartphone shipments dropped by 7 percent in 2016, much worse than the overall 4 percent growth rate exhibited by the worldwide smartphone market.