Global smartphone shipments decline for the first time ever

Global smartphone shipments fell 3 percent year-on-year in 2016's first quarter, Strategy Analytics said in a release. Year-over-year shipment growth was 62.5% in 2013, but by 2015 it had dropped to 2.5%.

Nearly 20% of OPPO's shipments went outside of China in 2015, and the company's expansion in China itself has been through offline channels and a strong push to lower-tier cities.

While Samsung remains the leading smartphone vendor, it saw its shipments drop 4 percent year over year.

"It is the first time ever since the modern smartphone market began in 1996 that global shipments have shrunk on an annualized basis", said Strategy Analytics director Linda Sui.

Samsung: The conglomerate on Thursday reported a jump in first quarter profit driven by its Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge smartphones, despite a 0.6 per cent annual decline in smartphones shipped. OPPO shipped 13.2 million smartphones and captured 13 percent marketshare in China in Q1 2016, up an impressive 67 percent annually.

Huawei is continuing its rise, with over 27 million devices shipped.

Outside of China, many of these brands are virtually unknown and the ability of these rapidly growing Chinese vendors to gain entry into mature markets such as the United States and Western Europe will be essential if they have aspirations of catching Apple or Samsung at the top, IDC said.

Apple reported Tuesday that the number of smartphones it sold worldwide fell by 16 percent to 51.2 million units in its fiscal second quarter ended March 26. Large growth in other areas, such as Africa, is unlikely unless there is a dramatic reduction in the ASP (average selling price) of lower-end smartphones, meaning that the market decline will to continue throughout the year.

While Samsung remains the leader, shipping 81.9 million phones in the quarter, that number was down 0.6% compared to previous year.

So what does all of this mean for the smartphone market?

Almost all smartphone brands faced varying degrees of decline with the exception of Samsung and Huawei, who have seen mild and moderate growth respectively.

IDC said that shipments declined 0.6% for No. 1 vendor Samsung and 16.3% for No. 2 vendor Apple. IDC says Samsung's global share of smartphone sales slipped to 24.5 per cent in the quarter from 24.6 per cent a year ago, although the company remains market leader.

"The fierce competitive environment could see weaker players become takeover targets, like BlackBerry or Sony", he said in an email, adding that he believes the slowdown in smartphone shipments is mostly due to penetration maturity and only partly due to economic headwinds.

"Tablet replacement cycles are creeping closer and closer to PC replacement cycles and further from smartphone replacement cycles", Smith said.

The breakneck pace of smartphone growth in China has slowed dramatically.

Source: Global smartphone shipments decline for the first time ever