The smartphone market is cutthroat. The growth in the number of global smartphone sales is huge. Not only is the number of manufacturers increasing, but also the users ready to embrace diverse brands. Consequently, the condition has led to a boom in Chinese smartphone market. Much to the tech industry’s surprise, Chinese upstarts emerged out of nowhere and collected an important chunk into their name. Brands like Xiaomi Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd., and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. have created quite an impact in the international market this year. A part of global consumers, for a change, chose to go for these brands instead of high-end Samsung Electronics Ltd. or Apple Inc. smartphones.
These new-age manufacturers have their eyes set on the international market, especially in the United States. For one thing, they aim to steal smartphone sales in the region where dominants Samsung and Apple are ruling.
Apple iPhone Sales – The Point Where Innovation Is Lagging
Sure, the Chinese brands are powerful and rising at a tremendous pace. But, it’s also true that they are not mighty enough to create a dent in the business of global giants’ duopoly. Samsung and Apple are the global dominants to be precise, which of course everyone is aware of. China hit Apple smartphone sales awfully in the home ground, but the global smartphone sales for the company have been stable. In other words, the business remained undented until some time back. Samsung Galaxy Note7 recently came to life cracking a bigger irony for Apple with its phenomenal design. Apple, on the hand, which is expecting the iPhone 7 release in September has minimal overhaul plans. Again, the situation makes Apple lag behind Samsung when it comes to targeting users.
Samsung is currently ruling the global smartphone business. It’s not that anyone can remain on the top for a long while. But for now, Samsung is at a point, where only Apple’s game-changing innovation can uproot it from its dominant position. Obviously, we’ll have to wait till the iPhone 8 release to witness the shift. Why would anyone go for a piece that looks exactly like the one launched a year back with minor design changes? A point that dually needs to noted. Meanwhile, Samsung is trying everything in its power to please, appeal, and hook up its Brobdingnagian user base.
Samsung’s shares are gradually outperforming Apple’s undented record. The South Korean behemoth has raised the bar too high with its recent releases. Moreover, the company has moved a step forward in its bid for international dominance. The global smartphone sales saw a hike in the last quarter of 2015 according to Gartner. Samsung occupied the bigger chunk of market share with 22.5 percent of the global market. The number of units sold by Samsung was 320,220. On the contrary, Apple managed to sell only 15.9 percent of the overall market with a sale of 225.851 units.
This month, Samsung renewed its all-time Jan’2013 hit by touching 1,675,000. The growth in shares has increased by 45 percent from a year ago. Over the same period, Apple’s shares have dropped by 5 percent. Apple has its minimal innovation to blame for the massacre this year. The release of iPhone 4SE and the premium iPhone 6S Plus failed to recreate the so-called “Apple Magic”.
Samsung’s Dominance Likely to Continue Until iPhone 8 Release
It’s quite clear that Samsung has a clear run on the global market at present. Thanks to the release of Galaxy S7 clan and Note7. The potent marketing strategy of S7 and Note7 has created a halo effect on other Samsung smartphones too. In fact, every handset in Samsung’s portfolio has received a strong boost in their potential sales. iPhone 7 is unlikely to create a strong impact, which will pave more way for Samsung to continue ruling the market. On the negative side, the impact on Apple iPhone sales which we’ve explained above doesn’t include the one from China’s leading companies yet. They are selling their smartphones in the larger chunk of the world. Their tremendous sales growth in fastest-growing economies like India and their home country are adding more to the misery.
Of course, like I previously said, these are likely to alter Apple’s international sales picture. Thanks, to higher priced iPhones, but Samsung is likely to give Apple a hard time throughout the year. The bigger question that arises is will Apple allow Samsung to dent its sales structure after iPhone 7 release. Against all odds, will consumers embrace the newest Apple product even though it arrives with the minimal overhaul? Only time will tell.
