Retail in Asia

In Trends

Q1 global smartphone sales up 3.9% at 349 million

A man talks on a phone in front of a giant advertisement promoting Samsung Electronics' new smartphone Galaxy S6 in central Seoul, South Korea, April 28, 2015. Picture taken on April 28, 2015. South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd on Wednesday reported January-March operating profit fell 29.6 percent from a year earlier, in line with the firm's earnings guidance, as strong chip sales offset a weaker mobile division. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji - RTX1AQIV

Sales of smartphones around the world in the first quarter rose 3.9 percent year on year to 349 million, according to US-based research firm Gartner.

South Korea’s Samsung continued to dominate the market, with 23.2 percent, followed by US tech giant Apple (14.8 percent), and China’s Huawei (8.3 percent), Oppo (4.6 percent) and Xiaomi (4.3 percent), the report said, adding that the combined share of the three Chinese companies rose over 6 percentage points from the previous year.

Individually, Oppo’s quarterly sales jumped 145 percent year on year — the highest of all those monitored — due to its success in attracting consumers with handsets in the 2,000 (US$305) to 3,000 yuan segment of the market, the report said.

Apple saw its market share fall by 3.1 percentage points year on year after reporting a double-digit decline in sales for the first quarter, it said.

(Source: Shanghai Daily )