The handset maker that appeared to suffer the most in the period was Samsung, according to Gartner. The South Korean tech giant saw the largest decline in sales among the top five smartphone makers, seeing its sales slip by 27.1 per cent from Q2 2019 to 55m. Despite this, it still – just about – kept its place as the number one smartphone vendor.

“The COVID-19 pandemic continued to negatively affect Samsung’s performance in the second quarter of 2020,” said Anshul Gupta, Senior Research Director at Gartner. “Demand for its flagship S Series smartphones did little to revive its smartphone sales globally.”

Huawei, though seeing its YoY sales drop by 6.8 per cent to 54m, came pretty close to Samsung in the race for the number one spot. Quarter-over-quarter, it experienced growth of 27.4 per cent.

“Huawei’s performance in China helped it avoid a worse quarterly performance,” added Gupta. “Huawei extended its lead in China where it captured 42.6 per cent of China’s smartphone market in the second quarter of 2020. Huawei put in place an aggressive product introduction and sales promotion in China in particular and benefited from the strong support of communications services providers for its 5G smartphones.”

Apple suffered the least out of the top handset makers, only sliding 0.4 per cent to 38m compared to Q2 2019. The fourth and fifth biggest vendors, Xiaomi and Oppo, suffered declines of 21.5 per cent and 15.9 per cent respectively.

“Apple’s iPhone sales fared better in the quarter than most smartphone vendors in the market and also grew sales quarter-over-quarter,” said Annette Zimmermann, Research Vice President at Gartner. “The improved business environment in China helped Apple achieve growth in the country. In addition, the introduction of the new iPhone SE encouraged users of older phones upgrade their smartphones.”

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Chinese smartphone makers – mostly Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, Realme, and Huawei – were responsible for 19m of the 30.7m units shipped during the quarter, meaning there was a 50 per cent year-over-year (YoY) growth for the Chinese brands. The 30.7m overall shipments represented a modest growth of two per cent over the same quarter last year, following several quarters of decline.

“Southeast Asia is popular for new brands, as the chances of success are higher than in other parts of the world,” said Canalys analyst Matthew Xie.

South Korean brand Samsung sold 7.7m units to claim the individual top spot, up five per cent YoY after three quarters of decline. Oppo was a close second with 7.3m units sold – its best-ever quarter performance and a growth of 49 per cent. Vivo remained third, shipping 4.1m handsets, while Xiaomi moved up into fourth place with its 3.7m units sold. Realme entered the top five for the first time, shipping 1.6m smartphones, despite only being in Southeast Asia for three quarters. This meant that Huawei fell out of the top five as its various international struggles continue.

“Samsung is fighting back in Southeast Asia, where its leadership position has been challenged by Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi,” said Xie. “Samsung chose Thailand to host the global launch event for its latest A series, to show the strategic importance of Southeast Asia.”

Research analyst Shengtao Jin added: “Oppo is moving aggressively to overtake Samsung as the leader in Southeast Asia. Spinning off the Realme operation last year has allowed the brand to expand aggressively in many markets… Together, Oppo and Realme have already exceeded Samsung’s shipments in this region. But, given Oppo’s top-selling devices remain its A5s and A3s, it is still facing challenges when trying to position itself as a high-end alternative to Samsung. The launch of the Reno series in June, plus its significant marketing spend, will be vital for Oppo’s attempt to break into the premium market, but it is still too early to see results.”

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In the US and China, where the most smartphones are sold, sales fell by 15.8 per cent and 3.2 per cent respectively. These struggles can be attributed to the rising price and slowing innovation of devices leading people to feel less of a need to regularly upgrade their handset.

“Demand for premium smartphones remained lower than for basic smartphones, which affected brands such as Samsung and Apple that have significant stakes in high-end smartphones,” said Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner. “In addition, demand for utility smartphones declined as the rate of upgrading from feature phones to smartphones has slowed, given that 4G feature phones give users great advantages at a lower cost.”

Samsung held on to the top spot in worldwide smartphone sales, achieving a 19.2 per cent share of the market with its 71.6m sales, according to Gartner. This marked a decline of around 7m sales and a 1.3 per cent fall in market share over the same quarter in 2018.

On the other hand, Huawei achieved a 44.5 per cent growth, reaching 58.4m units sold. This handed Huawei a 15.7 per cent market share, up from the 10.5 per cent in Q1 2018.

“Huawei did particularly well in two of its biggest regions, Europe and Greater China, where its smartphone sales grew by 69 per cent and 33 per cent, respectively,” said Gupta. “Unavailability of Google apps and services on Huawei smartphones, if implemented, will upset Huawei’s international smartphone business which is almost half of its worldwide phone business. Not the least it brings apprehension among buyers, limiting Huawei’s growth in the near term.”

Apple’s year-over-year sales dropped by nearly 10m, falling to 44.5m and giving the company an 11.9 per cent market share.

Oppo and Vivo rounded off the top five with their 7.9 and 7.3 per cent respective market shares.

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London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, Edinburgh, and Belfast will be the first UK locations to benefit from EE’s 5G network and its 5G plans. Alongside the technology going live, six 5G smartphones and devices will be made available, including smartphones from Samsung, OnePlus, LG, and Oppo, as well as 5GEE home broadband and 5GEE Wi-fi with the HTC 5G Hub.

“This is the start of the UK’s 5G journey and great news for our customers that want and need the best connections,” said Marc Allera, CEO of BT’s consumer division. “We’ve started with 5G in some of the busiest parts of the UK, the widest range of 5G devices in the UK, and plans that give customers the best mobile connection and great benefits.”

The 5G network is built on top of EE’s 4G network – with customers connecting to both at the same time. EE expects its customers to see an increase in speeds of between 100 and 150Mbps, with some customers’ speeds exceeding one gigabit-per-second.

The company says it will also bring 5G to the ‘busiest parts’ of Bristol, Coventry, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, and Sheffield in 2019. Then, in 2020, locations including Aberdeen, Cambridge, Derby, Gloucester, Peterborough, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Southampton, Worcester, and Wolverhampton can all expect to benefit.

In order to achieve its goal of rolling out 5G to the busiest parts of all the above locations, EE will be upgrading more than 100 sites to 5G each month. It will also be expanding 4G coverage into rural areas, and add more capacity to 4G sites b turning 3G signal into 4G.

EE’s 5G rollout will happen in three phases – this being the first. The full next generation 5G core network can be expected in the second phase, which will get going from 2022. The third phase, from 2023, will look to introduce Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC), Network Slicing, and multi-gigabit-per-second speeds to power applications such as real-time traffic management of fleets of autonomous vehicles.

“We’re adding 5G to the UK’s number one 4G network to increase reliability, increase speeds, and keep our customers connected where they need it most,” said Allera. “5G will create new experiences with augmented reality, make our customers’ lives easier, and help launch entirely new businesses that we haven’t even imagined. We’re upgrading more than 100 sites to 5G every month from today to connect more places to what 5G can enable. 

The BT-owned network has also announced a pair of 5G-powered partnerships with Google and Pokémon Go creator Niantic.

EE is bringing 5G to the Google for Startups Campus in London to help power the development of next generation apps and experiences. Meanwhile, EE is the exclusive UK telecom launch partner for Niantic’s upcoming augmented reality Harry Potter: Wizards Unite game. As a result, EE customers will gain exclusive in-game content, EE locations will appear in the game as sponsored Inns and Fortresses with higher reward payout, and there’ll be special quests announced at game’s launch.

“Our partnerships with Google and Niantic are just the start of our commitment to work with the most innovative and exciting companies in the world to ensure that EE customers are the first to benefit from the exciting new experiences that 5G will bring,” said Allera.

The first 5G smartphones available through EE will be the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, Oppo Reno 5G, LG V50 ThinQ, and OnePlus 7 Pro 5g.

In fact, the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G is already available for pre-order, making it the UK’s first commercially available 5G smartphone.

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According to Counterpoint Research, only Chinese brands Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo were able to achieve growth in Q1 2019, with the global smartphone market declining for the sixth consecutive quarter. Within this, Apple’s iPhone shipments fell YoY for the second consecutive quarter, dropping 20 per cent as its market share dipped from 14 per cent to 12 per cent.

“The global smartphone market showed no sign of recovery in Q1 2019. The rate of decline came down, particularly in February, due to inventory correction by some brands and the production halt during Chinese New Year,” said Tarun Pathak, associate director at Counterpoint. “Another reason for the decline is lengthening replacement cycles, especially in the premium segment. The replacement rate for iPhones is reaching close to 36 months, while the replacement rate for premium Android devices is closing in at 30 months. This can be attributed to the higher quality of devices, increasing average selling price (ASP), and the lack of innovative technology.”

Samsung maintained its number one position, but saw shipments fall by eight per cent and its market share take a slight hit in falling from 22 per cent to 21 per cent. Huawei’s growth saw its market share leap from 11 per cent to 17 per cent.

“Huawei became the second largest smartphone brand by shipment without a significant presence in an important market like the US,” said Shobhit Srivastava, research analyst at Counterpoint. “It was also the fastest growing brand among the top 10. At this pace, we expect Huawei to remain ahead of Apple at the end of 2019.”

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Although Apple took the lead in phones shipped within Q4, the full year of 2018 was won by Samsung, shipping 293.7m devices globally. Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi finished the top five vendors of Q4, all seeing a positive annual growth compared to Q4 2017. Even with the annual growth of three major vendors, global smartphone shipments in 2018 totaled 1.4bn, down by 5 per cent compared to 2017’s 1.5bn total shipments.

“It is no shock to smartphone vendors that the market has passed its peak,” said Canalys senior analyst Ben Stanton, “People are clearly keeping phones for longer as product innovation slows. But the speed and severity of shipment decline has caught many vendors, investors, and other companies in the value chain off guard. International factors like the U.S-China trade war, weak consumer spending in developed markets, and a buoyant market for refurbished phones, have catalyzed the decline of smartphone shipments.”

Apple’s iPhone XR was the most popular iPhone of Q4, with over 22m shipments globally, followed by the iPhone XS Max and iPhone XS. However, the tech giant’s popularity continues to shrink, especially in core markets like China, most likely due to competition from Samsung and Huawei, who both offer cheaper alternatives.

While Apple and Samsung both falling short of their respective shipping goals, Huawei jumped by 47 per cent in annual growth in Q4. Huawei also pioneered new technology in 2018, leading to record market share in China and a 60 per cent increase in shipments overseas. Canalys predicts major challenges for all three vendors in the year to come, including political hurdles, pricing, and the rise of aggressive competitors. 

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The overall decline can be blamed partly on China having one of its worst year-on-year performances in Q4 2017, seeing shipments slump 14 per cent to under 113m units, according to market analyst Canalys.

“The declining Chinese market will have a detrimental impact on those Chinese vendors that have been heavily relying on their home market,” said Hattie He, research analyst at Canalys. “It will affect their cashflow and profitability, limiting overseas expansion and bringing into question future survival. The threat to vendors such as Gionee and Meizu is now closer than ever.”

Despite the overall market struggling, Huawei continued to strengthen its position as China’s number one smartphone maker. It saw shipments grow by nine per cent in the fourth quarter of 2017, shipping over 24m units and achieving its best-ever quarter, to bring its total smartphones sold to 90m for the whole year.

On the other hand, Oppo and Vivo – second and third in China’s smartphone market – saw shipments fall by 16 per cent and seven per cent respectively in Q4 2017, while Apple overtook Xiaomi into fourth place.

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