2017 Q3 Smartphone Market - The battle of the flagship phones
On Nov 2 - IDC released their Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker data for Q3 2017.
The overall market sold 373.1M units a 2.7% increase over Q3 2016. Just to give you some perspective that 373.1M I estimate to be 120M+ units more than the entire PC market for 2017.
The top five ranking did not change.
Samsung is still #1 worldwide with 83.3M units sold an increase of 9.5% and a 22.3% market share.
Apple is still number 2 with 46.7M units sold an increase of 2.6% - so pretty much in line with the overall market growth and a 12.5% market share - so about the same as last year.
Huawei is still a strong #3 with 39.1M units sold - a 16.1% year over year growth and a 10.5% market share. Back in my post on Q2 sales, I had predicted that Huawei may surpass Apple for #2, but Apple had a good Q3 with a lot of promotions during the summer.
Oppo is #4 with 30.7M units sold - a 19% growth over 2016 and a 8.5% market share
Xaiomi is #5 with 27.6M units sold a stagger 102.6% growth over 2016 and a 7.4% market share
Just as we've seen in the PC market - these top 5 are taking some sales from OEMs in the Others category which saw a 13.6% drop in unit sales to 145.7M units. This group includes folks like LG, Moto, OnePlus, Google, HTC and Essential.
Q4 is going to be interesting. The big 3 all have new flagship phones - Samsung with the Galaxy 8 line - S8, S8+ and Note8, Apple with the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X along with Huawei's Mate10 and Mate 10 Pro. Add to that the mix Google Pixel 2, LGs V30 and the HTC 11 just the name a few.
There are a lot of $800+ phones out there now with Apple's iPhone X making a lot of headlines with it's $999 starting price.
Typically Apple has a blockbuster Q4 with 70 - 80M units. However sales of the iPhone 8 models haven't been as strong as anticipated and the iPhone X was not available until November and has experienced some production constraints that may keep volume down. However with the price increases Apple will still have a massive revenue number for Q4. Apple's market cap is approaching $1T as they typically make the lion's share of profits in the smartphone market.
Samsung has recovered from the Note 7 issues from last year and the 8 series are selling well. So I expect them to have a strong Q4 as well.
Two interesting players here will be Google and Huawei. Versus the Nexus and Pixel 1 series devices, the Pixel 2 is being promoted heavily and the Huawei Mate 10 like the Pixel has introduced AI chipsets that will bring powerful photo processing capabilities like "search for photos of xxx".
With Google I don't expect them to suddenly jump into the top 5, but they may pull some sales from both Apple and Samsung. With Huawei - they will not sell heavily in the US, but they will continue to show strong sales in Asia and Europe.
So let the battle begin and we'll see where the dust settles in Jan. There is the potential for record unit sales in Q4.
The overall market sold 373.1M units a 2.7% increase over Q3 2016. Just to give you some perspective that 373.1M I estimate to be 120M+ units more than the entire PC market for 2017.
The top five ranking did not change.
Samsung is still #1 worldwide with 83.3M units sold an increase of 9.5% and a 22.3% market share.
Apple is still number 2 with 46.7M units sold an increase of 2.6% - so pretty much in line with the overall market growth and a 12.5% market share - so about the same as last year.
Huawei is still a strong #3 with 39.1M units sold - a 16.1% year over year growth and a 10.5% market share. Back in my post on Q2 sales, I had predicted that Huawei may surpass Apple for #2, but Apple had a good Q3 with a lot of promotions during the summer.
Oppo is #4 with 30.7M units sold - a 19% growth over 2016 and a 8.5% market share
Xaiomi is #5 with 27.6M units sold a stagger 102.6% growth over 2016 and a 7.4% market share
Just as we've seen in the PC market - these top 5 are taking some sales from OEMs in the Others category which saw a 13.6% drop in unit sales to 145.7M units. This group includes folks like LG, Moto, OnePlus, Google, HTC and Essential.
Q4 is going to be interesting. The big 3 all have new flagship phones - Samsung with the Galaxy 8 line - S8, S8+ and Note8, Apple with the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X along with Huawei's Mate10 and Mate 10 Pro. Add to that the mix Google Pixel 2, LGs V30 and the HTC 11 just the name a few.
There are a lot of $800+ phones out there now with Apple's iPhone X making a lot of headlines with it's $999 starting price.
Typically Apple has a blockbuster Q4 with 70 - 80M units. However sales of the iPhone 8 models haven't been as strong as anticipated and the iPhone X was not available until November and has experienced some production constraints that may keep volume down. However with the price increases Apple will still have a massive revenue number for Q4. Apple's market cap is approaching $1T as they typically make the lion's share of profits in the smartphone market.
Samsung has recovered from the Note 7 issues from last year and the 8 series are selling well. So I expect them to have a strong Q4 as well.
Two interesting players here will be Google and Huawei. Versus the Nexus and Pixel 1 series devices, the Pixel 2 is being promoted heavily and the Huawei Mate 10 like the Pixel has introduced AI chipsets that will bring powerful photo processing capabilities like "search for photos of xxx".
With Google I don't expect them to suddenly jump into the top 5, but they may pull some sales from both Apple and Samsung. With Huawei - they will not sell heavily in the US, but they will continue to show strong sales in Asia and Europe.
So let the battle begin and we'll see where the dust settles in Jan. There is the potential for record unit sales in Q4.
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