Smartphone Sales Fall Globally For the First Time: Gartner

While smartphone growth has been slowing down for quite a few years, partly due to saturation in the matured markets and painful growth in some developing markets. Simply for the offset time since 2004, when it began analyzing the market, research firm Gartner has recorded a reject in the sales of smartphones.

As per Gartner, 408 million units of smartphones were sold during the last quarter of 2017, which is 5.6 per centum lower than the number of units sold during the December quarter of 2016. Samsung, the pinnacle-ranked smartphone manufacturer by sales witnessed a fall of 3.6% over the previous yr, while runner-upwardly Apple's sales also slowed down by 5%. The only companies among the top five vendors to witness growths were Huawei and Xiaomi.

Smartphone Sales Fall Globally For the First Time: Garner

The chief reason for this slowdown, as per Gartner, is the deadening migration from feature phones to smartphones owing to the scarcity of good-quality "ultra-depression-cost" smartphones. Secondly, the replacement cycle for good smartphones has elongated over time and users at present prefer buying superior smartphones and retaining them for longer.

Furthermore, companies have not been able to meet high expectations from users about improved cameras and improve connectivity options. This pinned their hopes on superior and more affordable smartphones, which will be launching in 2018.

Gartner also noted that Samsung is likely to recover in terms of sales in the coming quarter as it launches the Galaxy S9 serial. Also, a "delayed demand" for the iPhone X is expected to boost sales for the visitor in the kickoff quarter of 2018. Information technology further cited Xiaomi's popularity in the emerging markets of Asia-Pacific region has helped it regain lost basis. Every bit for Huawei, the research firm said that the success of its wide catalog of products lies strongly on its entry into the U.S. as much as information technology does on its performance in the developing countries of Asia.