Q4 Global Smartphone Sales Fell 5.6%, in First Quarterly Decline, Says Gartner

Global sales of smartphones to end users totaled 407.85 million units in the fourth quarter of 2017, a 5.6 percent decline from a year earlier, said a Gartner report. It was the first year-on-year quarterly decline recorded since Gartner started tracking the global smartphone market in 2004, the company said. Replacement smartphone users are “choosing quality models and keeping them longer, lengthening the replacement cycle of smartphones,” and that contributed to the decline, said Gartner. Of the top five global brands, only Huawei and Xiaomi had Q4 sales increases, said the report. Samsung’s sales fell 3.6 percent to 74.03 million phones, and iPhone sales declined 5 percent to 73.18 million, it said. Apple finished Q4 with a 17.9 percent global unit share in smartphones, second to Samsung’s 18.2 percent, it said. The two companies finished Q4 a year earlier virtually tied in unit share at 17.8 percent each, it said.