Global smartphone sales post slowest growth since 2008:Gartner

Global smartphone sales grew at its slowest pace since 2008, rising 9.7 per cent to total 403.1 million units in the October-December 2015 quarter, research firm Gartner said today.
The growth continues to be led by emerging markets like India and growing demand for premium smartphones, Gartner said in a statement.
Sales totalled 367.3 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015. For the entire year 2015, smartphone sales reached 1.4 billion units, up 14.4 per cent from 1.2 billion units in 2014.
"Low-cost smartphones in emerging markets, and strong demand for premium smartphones, continued to be the driving factors," Gartner Research Director Anshul Gupta said.

An aggressive pricing from local and Chinese brands in the mid-range and entry-level segments of emerging markets led to consumers upgrading more quickly to affordable smartphones, he added.
Gupta said 85 per cent of users in emerging Asia-Pacific market are replacing their current mid-range phone with the same category of phone.

In addition, currency devaluations against the US dollar in many emerging markets are putting further margin pressure on many vendors that import devices, he said.
"Current market conditions are prompting some vendors to consider setting up manufacturing operations in India and Indonesia to avoid being hit by future unfavorable currency devaluations and high import taxes," he said.

In the fourth quarter of 2015, Samsung led the tally of vendors with 20.7 per cent share, followed by Apple (17.7 per cent), Huawei (8 per cent), Lenovo (5 per cent) and Xiaomi (4.5 per cent).
Apple suffered its first decline in sales of smartphones as iPhone sales were down 4.4 per cent, it added.
In 2015, Samsung maintained the leadership position with 22.5 per cent share, followed by Apple (15.9 per cent), Huawei (7.3 per cent), Lenovo (5.1 per cent) and Xiaomi (4.6 per cent).
In terms of operating system (OS), Android increased 16.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2015 to account for 80.7 per cent of the global total.

"Android benefited from continued demand for affordable smartphones and from the slowdown of iOS units (17.7 per cent share) in the premium market in the fourth quarter of 2015," Gartner Research Director Roberta Cozza said.