NUR-SULTAN – Smartphone sales declined in China, Kazakhstan and the United States in the second quarter of the year, reported Finprom.kz. Experts expect a recovery in global sales in 2020.
Photo credit: wifi.kz.
Global smartphone shipments totalled 644 million from January-June compared to 673.9 million in the same period last year, reported the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. Notably, shipments reached 333.2 million from April-June, 2.3 percent less than last year, when shipments were 341.2 million.
The sharpest quarterly declines were observed in China and the United States. The decline in the former was less severe than in “the second half of 2018, suggesting some recovery is underway in the world’s largest single market,” reported IDC.com.
Conversely, shipments in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding China and Japan, were up more than 3 percent in the second quarter. This was “fueled by growth across India and many Southeast Asia markets,” the document added.
Through August, Kazakhstan had 25.8 million mobile cellular subscribers, 5.1 percent fewer than the 27.2 million a year earlier. Approximately 14.8 million of those subscribers had Internet access, 4.5 percent more than the 14.1 million the previous year. In the same time period, the density of mobile cellular subscribers was 140 per 100 individuals; those with Internet access, 80 per 100.
The five largest smartphone suppliers, Samsung, Huawei, Apple, Xiaomi and Oppo, accounted for 69 percent of the total global market volume in the second quarter. In Kazakhstan, Samsung had a 42.55-percent market share in August, Apple (19.99 percent), Xiaomi (12.06 percent), Huawei (11.01-percent) and Oppo (1.81 percent).
“Demand for high-end smartphones has slowed at a greater rate than demand for mid-range and low-end smartphones. To try to boost smartphone replacements, we’ve seen manufacturers bringing premium features such as multilens front/back cameras, bezel-less displays and large batteries from their flagship smartphones into lower-priced models,” said Gartner Senior Research Director Anshul Gupta on Gartner.com.
“A key driver in the second quarter was the availability of vastly improved mid-tier devices that offer premium designs and features while significantly undercutting the ultra-high-end in price. Combine this with intensified and generous trade-in programmes across major markets and channels and upgrading now makes more sense to consumers,” said IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker Research Manager Anthony Scarsella on IDC.com.
