Samsung Reversed Smartphone Declines in Q2; Industry Fell 1.7% on Low-End Shift

Samsung had a 17 percent rise in global smartphone sales in Q2 due to the Galaxy A series, Gartner reported Tuesday. Reversing six consecutive quarters of declines, Samsung’s 75.1 million units were 20.4 percent of the industry’s 367.9 million units, down 1.7 percent from 374.3 million units in the year ago quarter. “Demand for high-end smartphones has slowed at a greater rate than demand for midrange and low-end smartphones,” said analyst Anshul Gupta, noting manufacturers are extending flagship features such as multi-lens front and rear cameras, bezel-less displays and high-capacity batteries to lower-priced phones. Huawei (15.8 percent) and Samsung (20.4 percent) together had more than a third of global smartphone sales in the quarter, despite a “sharp decline” in Huawei’s global phone sales due to Huawei’s placement on the Commerce Department’s entity list (see 1907050003). Huawei’s strong promotion and brand positioning led to its selling a record number of smartphones in Greater China, where sales grew 31 percent, Gartner said. IPhones sales continued to decline year over year, though the 13.8 percent rate was lower than in Q1, said Gartner, attributing declines to “too few incremental benefits” enticing customer upgrades. Apple sold 38.5 million shipments in the quarter, for 11 percent share, reaching “an inflection point” in its business shift from hardware toward services, Gupta noted: Services were 21 percent of Apple's total revenue in Q1. China held the top position in smartphone sales, with 101 million sales in Q2, up 0.5 percent year on year; with more 5G smartphones available in Q2, vendors there cleared out inventory of high-end 4G models, said Gartner. Global smartphone sales will remain weak for the rest of the year, the researcher said, forecasting a 2.5 percent drop to 1.5 billion units for the year.