Apple and Samsung lose ground in smartphone market as Chinese rivals pile on pressure

midian182

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Staff member
Why it matters: The smartphone industry remained stagnant during Q4 2018 and across the whole of last year, but it was a good period for Chinese firms. Both Apple and Samsung saw their respective market shares eroded by Huawei, Xiaomi, and OPPO.

Data from research firm Gartner showed that across the whole of 2018, Samsung’s market share fell from 20.9 percent to 19 percent, while Apple went from 14 percent to 13.4 percent. Gartner says iPhone sales were down 2.7 percent to just over 209 million units, mostly due to the difficulties Apple is facing in China’s market.

While it was bad news for the top two, their Chinese rivals all saw year-over-year improvements. Despite its ongoing battle with the US government, Huawei gained the largest increase—3.2 percent. Overall, smartphone sales grew just 1.2 percent during the entire year.

It was a similar story for the fourth quarter, which saw Apple’s worst quarterly decline since Q1 2016. The 64.5 million units it shifted represented a drop of 11.8 percent YoY, making it “the worst performer of the quarter among the top five global smartphone vendors.” Samsung’s share was down by almost a full percentage point in Q4, while Huawei and OPPO experienced YoY jumps. Total sales for the quarter, meanwhile, were at 408.3 million units, a yearly increase of just 0.1 percent.

Gartner's senior research director, Anshul Gupta, said expensive, high-end phones that come with few upgrades over their predecessors are deterring users from buying the latest models. Additionally, features once reserved for flagships continue to make their way into cheaper, mid-range models.

"Although Samsung is strengthening its smartphone offering at the mid-tier, it continues to face growing competition from Chinese brands that are expanding into more markets," added Gupta.

While it’s certainly innovative, Samsung’s Galaxy Flex phone starts at a massive $1,980. The Galaxy S10+, the largest model in the latest S range, starts at $999.99.

Image credit: Bodnar Taras via Shutterstock

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And you'll never find me buying a cheap Chinese phone, probably backdoored with a connection directly to "President" of China himself. China is not a country that you can trust.
 
Oh, Apple look very close to dropping into 3rd place. They better convince the US to imprison some more members of the Huawei family if they want to keep their 2nd place market share intact.
 
Maybe crApple and Samsuck will attempt recovery from this by raising the prices on their already over-priced products. :laughing:

Competition is good. Perhaps, just perhaps, the two of them can use this as a learning experience. *nerd* Oh wait! Silly me! Both of them already know it all. :facepalm:
 
And you'll never find me buying a cheap Chinese phone, probably backdoored with a connection directly to "President" of China himself. China is not a country that you can trust.
People like you would rather make US-based CEOs extra rich with gigantic markups because you think just because something is made in China, it's a device used to spy on you? News flash, it's more likely to be the other way around... It's probably less likely to be a spy device the US can use against you.

Oh and once again I'll mention this... Unless you hold some incredibly important and secret job, you have nothing to worry about. Even if the president of China had time to sit down and sort through the millions of devices they've sold in their country to find YOUR device, why the he%# would he care to listen in on your conversations or try to track your movements? "Ooooh he just broke up with Erica and is now headed to work. Ooooh now he just drank a coke and is calling his buddy Mike." Again, worst case scenario is... who cares about average american lives?!!??!!

This is paranoia at its best.
 
China has repeatedly shown that they don't give a crap about intellectual property rights and global patents, they flagrantly steal ideas from the west and do it cheaper to put others out of work.

China wants to dominate the world and Trump is the only one that has the balls to tell China to sit down, shut up and obey the rules of the world. The rest of the world is too stupid to realize what China wants to do.
 
People like you would rather make US-based CEOs extra rich with gigantic markups because you think just because something is made in China, it's a device used to spy on you? News flash, it's more likely to be the other way around... It's probably less likely to be a spy device the US can use against you.

Oh and once again I'll mention this... Unless you hold some incredibly important and secret job, you have nothing to worry about. Even if the president of China had time to sit down and sort through the millions of devices they've sold in their country to find YOUR device, why the he%# would he care to listen in on your conversations or try to track your movements? "Ooooh he just broke up with Erica and is now headed to work. Ooooh now he just drank a coke and is calling his buddy Mike." Again, worst case scenario is... who cares about average american lives?!!??!!

This is paranoia at its best.
Exactly. We're just data and every government in the world wants our data and is probably getting it. So either go live in a cave or just buy whatever phone suits you best. For me, if it's got all the features I want and is half the cost of an Apple or Samsung phone then I'm buying it.
Having said that, I'm careful about what I install or give my phone access to. Not because of the governments but because of the App developers.
 
And you'll never find me buying a cheap Chinese phone, probably backdoored with a connection directly to "President" of China himself. China is not a country that you can trust.

Lol and USA or any other government for that matter is trust worthy? Personally if I was to buy a phone right now it would be Honor View 20. Its £470 which is half of the S10+ 128GB asking price and its more than enough for me :)
 
As much as I despise China, good news. Samesung and Apple are delusional and arrogant. Their defies belief and good to see Apple’s share price smashed. Even iTards have woken up to the gouging, which btw Tim Cook admitted, he said prices rises tto maintain margins and they already have the highest margins in the world. Hopefully Samesung gets smashed now.
 
As much as I despise China
China is literally one of the biggest human rights violation capitals of the world. Don't agree with the Communist Party of China? You get sent to a "re-education" camp for some good old fashioned brainwashing. This is the reason I despise, no... hate China. Their beliefs go against just about every single idea that most civilized nations have. I cannot in good conscience support a regime that keeps their citizens under a totalitarian control.

And since China is a communist state it's generally known that all companies (including Huawei) in China have what is euphemistically referred to as a "political officer". In other words, the Chinese government knows everything about what their companies do. Company leaders have to check with their governmental overlords to see if what they want to do complies with the wants and needs of the Communist Party of China. This actually happens!!!

The faster western companies pull out of China and tell China to go piss up a rope the better it will be for all of us. This is why I support Trump with his trade tariffs against China. They have repeatedly shown that they don't give a crap about the rest of the world or even their own citizens. Like I said before, I cannot in good conscience support a regime that keeps their citizens under a totalitarian control.
 
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And you'll never find me buying a cheap Chinese phone, probably backdoored with a connection directly to "President" of China himself. China is not a country that you can trust.
People like you would rather make US-based CEOs extra rich with gigantic markups because you think just because something is made in China, it's a device used to spy on you? News flash, it's more likely to be the other way around... It's probably less likely to be a spy device the US can use against you.

Oh and once again I'll mention this... Unless you hold some incredibly important and secret job, you have nothing to worry about. Even if the president of China had time to sit down and sort through the millions of devices they've sold in their country to find YOUR device, why the he%# would he care to listen in on your conversations or try to track your movements? "Ooooh he just broke up with Erica and is now headed to work. Ooooh now he just drank a coke and is calling his buddy Mike." Again, worst case scenario is... who cares about average american lives?!!??!!

This is paranoia at its best.
Very true. Very funny too, thanks, I needed that.
 
I'd be interested to see the figures for only the U.S. market- I mean if you go by country, china would probably have the highest number of units sold, so that would skew the "worldwide" numbers.
IMO, the prices of smartphones are insane, regardless of brand- I would never spend more than the absolute minimum for one. I mean even the cheapest one will allow you to text, stream music, and whatever else you want to do, other than make a social statement"!!!!!
 
Social statement or not, I will not support a Chinese company. Not until the Chinese government cleans up their act and quits sending people who don't agree with the party line to "re-education" camps along with obeying global patents.
 
@midian 182 said:

"It was a similar story for the fourth quarter, which saw Apple’s worst quarterly decline since Q1 2016. The 64.5 million units it shifted represented a drop of 11.8 percent YoY, making it “the worst performer of the quarter among the top five global smartphone vendors.”

Whilst I would have worded it, "The 64.5 million units it "shafted iSheep with" :rolleyes:
 
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