IPhone 7s Still Lead Global Phone Sales, Smaller Models Losing Share, Says IHS

The Apple iPhone 7, followed by the iPhone 7 Plus, outsold all other smartphones worldwide in the first six months of 2017, but shipment volumes declined vs. iPhone 6s models in the comparable period last year, said an IHS Markit report Tuesday. The smaller-screen 4.7-inch iPhone models ranked in the top positions in the first half of three consecutive years beginning in 2015, but their market share has continued to shrink, dropping from 10 percent in 2015 to 7 percent in 2016, and 5 percent in 2017, said IHS. Samsung’s Galaxy Grand Prime Plus came in third for the first half of 2017, followed by the iPhone 6s, Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus. Samsung’s Galaxy S8 flagship series shipped in April, a month later than the series the previous year, it noted. Five Samsung models, four iPhones and one Oppo smartphone made up the top 10 smartphone models shipped from January through June. The number of smartphone models with more than a million shipments per month increased in first half 2017 to 22 from 17 last year, as OEMs looked to shore up product quality and boost profitability, said analyst Jusy Hong. She said more Chinese OEMs are selling outside of China, stepping up competition and generating more popular models. Eight handsets from Chinese manufacturers are among the 22 top-shipping models for the period: five from Oppo, two from Xiaomi and one from Huawei, IHS said. Samsung had 10 models that shipped more than 1 million units per month, and Apple had four.