The latest Gartner data (below) shows that both Apple and Samsung lost market share in the first quarter of the year as Chinese brands continued to increase their sales.
iPhone sales actually grew very marginally year-on-year, but the market as a whole grew 9% in the same period, resulting in the decrease in market share. Apple saw its global share fall from 14.8% to 13.7%, but market leader Samsung was hit harder …
Samsung saw its own share fall from 23.3% to 20.7%.
Oppo saw the largest percentage gain, growing from 4.6% to 8.1%. Other winners were Vivo (4% to 6.8%) and Huawei (8.3% to 9%).
While Chinese brands sell most phones in their home market, they are also starting to do well in other emerging markets, says Gartner.
Apple is fighting back with a new ad campaign aimed squarely at Android users. The campaign partly tries to persuade Android users that iPhone is a more capable device, but is mostly geared to showing how easy it is to make the switch.
