The global smartphone market bounced back as shipments grew by 10% year-on-year, according to a report by Canalys Research. The research firm noted that the market had reached double-digit growth after “10 difficult quarters”. The growth is attributed to refreshed portfolios by brands and macroeconomic stabilisation in emerging market economies. In the first quarter, a total of 296.2 million smartphone shipments were recorded.
Samsung emerged as the number one brand, shipping 60 million units in the first quarter of 2024. As per Canalys, this was down to the popular A-series and early releases of the Galaxy S24 series of smartphones. Canalys senior analyst Sanyam Chaurasia noted that compared to last year’s S23 release, Samsung launched the Galaxy S24 a month earlier and shipped 13.5 million units, a 35 per cent year-over-year shipment growth vs its predecessor in the corresponding quarter last year. Samsung garnered a 20% market share but compared to last year, the South Korean tech company saw its shipments decline by 1 per cent.
Apple fell to second place with 48.7 million shipments and suffered a double-digit decline. Apple’s market share was down to 16% compared to 21% in the same quarter last year. Xiaomi held onto third place with 40.7 million shipments whereas Chinese players Transsion and Oppo came in fourth and fifth respectively. According to Canalys, Xiaomi and Transsion saw year-over-year growth of 33% and 86% respectively, driven by strong shipments of their latest models into the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America markets.
Chaurasia believes that AI-powered features coming to mid-range phones could drive further growth in the global smartphone market. “The evolution of on-device AI solutions for smartphones depends heavily on strategic alliances among brands, chipset providers, and software firms,” he said. Brands will look for open collaboration to bring AI solutions to end users. “In the long-term, vendors will look to bring these AI features to mid-range price bands to add more users to their native AI ecosystems,” Chaurasia added.
Also read: Apple drops to fifth place in China’s smartphone market, claims Canalys report
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