IDC Pegs 2015 Global Smartphone Unit Shipments at Record 1.4 Billion

A strong holiday quarter boosted worldwide smartphone shipments to new record highs, “thanks to robust product offerings at numerous price points in both mature and emerging markets,” IDC said Wednesday in a quarterly smartphone tracker report. That was in sharp contrast to an early December “forecast update” in which IDC said 2015 would be the first full year of only single-digit percentage worldwide smartphone sales growth due to the slowdown in consumer demand in most Asian markets, Latin America and Western Europe (see 1512030051). Now, IDC estimates worldwide smartphone makers shipped a total of 1.4 billion units for the full year, “marking the highest year of shipments on record,” up 10.1 percent from the 1.3 billion units shipped in 2014, the research firm said. “Usually the conversation in the smartphone market revolves around Samsung and Apple, but Huawei's strong showing for both the quarter and the year speak to how much it has grown as an international brand," IDC said. "While there is a lot of uncertainty around the economic slowdown in China, Huawei is one of the few brands from China that has successfully diversified worldwide, with almost half of its shipments going outside of China.” For 2015, IDC estimates Samsung finished with the top global share at 22.7 percent, down from its 24.4 percent share in 2014. Apple held onto the second position at 16.2 percent, up from its 14.8 percent share in 2014, IDC said. But No. 3 Huawei’s share rose to 7.4 percent from 5.7 percent on its 44.3 percent rise in unit shipments from 2014, IDC said. By comparison, shipments at Samsung and Apple increased only 2.1 percent and 20.2 percent, respectively, it said.