According to the report, Chinese companies accounted for 9 of the top 12 units shipped in 2017. Samsung and Apple dominate the 2015--2017 smartphone market, according to the report. In 2016, the total number of smartphone shipments in two companies amounted to 526 million, accounting for 35% of smartphone market share.
2017, two company smartphone shipments amounted to 533 million, the market share increased by 1%, reached 36%. Samsung's total smartphone sales rose 2% in 2017 from a year earlier, to 317 million, slightly above the total smartphone market growth of 1% per cent. Meanwhile, orders for the new Apple iphone in 2016 fell by 7%, well below the 4% growth rate in the global smartphone market.
However, Apple rebounded in 2017 and its smartphone sales were almost unchanged from 2016. Now, with Huawei, OPPO, Vivo and millet as the representatives, emerging Chinese smartphone makers are challenging Samsung, Apple's smartphone market share.
Notably, Samsung and Apple still dominate the high-end smartphone market, which sells more than $200 trillion.
Smartphone vendors, ranked fourth and fifth in the list, totaled 213.1 million handsets in 2017, only 2.7 million fewer than the second-ranked Apple.
Overall, smartphone shipments grew at a low level in the top 12 suppliers in 2017.
As shown in the picture, 4 of the top 12 companies have achieved double-digit unit growth, while 8 other companies have grown 2% or less, and 4 have shown two-digit declines. Shipments of three Chinese smartphone suppliers, millet, oppo and vivo, increased by at least 24% in 2017. Millet has the highest growth rate in the top 12 smartphone providers, reaching 73%.
Meanwhile, several other Chinese suppliers, such as Tesco, Cool, ZTE and Tcl, have seen their smartphone shipments drop by more than 20% last year.
Overall, in 2017, China's 9 leading smartphone suppliers in shipments of 626 million, compared with 565 million in 2016, the growth of 11%, market share of 42%, than 2016 38% of the share of 4%, than the 2015 34% share of 8%. IC Insights estimates that smartphone shipments will grow by 2% in 2018, up to 1.53 billion.
