The smartphone market is changing very quickly. It's worth remembering how recently smartphones HTC, Sony and LG were among the most popular. Millions of people have chosen phones from these manufacturers, but times are changing. When Chinese manufacturers entered this market, few believed they could overtake established brands, but they succeeded.
How has the smartphone market changed?
Back in 2010, Nokia ranked first in the world with a market share of 28 percent. Samsung was then in second place with 17%. The company followed LG with 7%. Sony, Motorola and HTC were in the top ten. In a short 2 years, everything has changed dramatically, in 2012 Samsung took the first place, occupying almost 22% of the market, the second place went to Nokia with 19% and only in third place Apple with 7.5%. 3% went to ZTE and LG. Even then, ZTE and Huawei were in the top ten. Mostly people bought Samsung, Nokia and Apple devices.
The smartphone market is changing so quickly that we simply do not have time to keep track of how the leaders are changing. However, after 2012, Huawei bursts into the arena. In 2013, Samsung was in first place with 31%, in second Apple with 15.6%, and in third place Huawei. She managed to borrow almost 5%. In 2014, due to the merger of Lenovo and Motorola, the company took 3rd place, ahead of Huawei. The leaderboard was still held by Samsung and Apple (24.7% and 15.4%).
Since about 2015, it has started to grow quite well Huawei. Increasing the share from 5% to 7%. All this time Xiaomi is confidently holding on to the 5th line. Samsung had 22.5% of the market that year and Apple 15.9%. Everything changes in 2016, Samsung loses the market from 20.5%, Apple gets 14.4%, Huawei grows strongly from 8.9%, and Oppo comes from 5. 7% of the market. In 2017, Samsung grew slightly to 20.9%, and Apple lost share to 14%, Huawei, Oppo and Vivo gained 9.8%, 7 , 3% and 6.5% respectively. In 2018, the gap between Huawei and Apple is closing, and Sasmung is still losing its share from 20%. Apple gets 13.4% of the market the year before last, and Huawei has grown to 13%. At this time Xiaomi, they managed to recover their positions from 7.9% in third place.
In 2019 Huawei managed to take the second place with 19% of the market, while Samsung still manages to hold the first place with 22%. The reason for this is the rather successful line of smartphones GalaxyAX0. Plus, in 2019, Samsung launched the budget Galaxy M line.
The company is developing in an interesting way Xiaomi, it is gradually increasing its market share, and in 2019 it may take 10% in total. Already in 2020 Xiaomi may overtake Apple, unless, of course, it increases sales due to very cheap iPhone 9. But even if not in 2020, in 21 years Xiaomi will definitely manage to break into 3rd place, and in the future, possibly into 2nd place, because Huawei has not been doing very well lately.
Why HTC no longer exists
The fact is that the company's sales were getting worse and worse every year, so it was forced to close its business and switch to other projects. The most popular was the Vive virtual reality helmet, which she is developing to this day.
Xiaomi is afraid
The company is watching Huawei and is well aware that the same can apply to it. According to the company's product manager, Xiaomi invests in semiconductor manufacturers, so if something happens is ready to work under sanctions. This will lead to the fact that Samsung and Apple take a strong position, while other Chinese manufacturers, trying to catch up with competitors, will be oppressed by sanctions. There will be a strong gap between Samsung, Apple and other manufacturers, which is not very good for the market as a whole. The US authorities are likely to interfere with fair competition among companies in a trade war, leading to market stagnation.
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