Highlights: IDC dubs 2018 as worst year for smartphone shipments globally. Chinese players saw positive growth despite decline. Samsung led the overall market, followed by Apple and Huawei. The year 2018 was the worst year ever for smartphone shipments globally as smartphone vendors shipped a total of 1.4 billion units in the full year, which is down 4.9 percent year-over-year (YoY), International Data Corporation (IDC) said in its Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. The market research firm also said that in the fourth quarter of 2018, 375.4 million units were shipped, which is down 4.9 percent year-over-year (YoY). The holiday quarter closed out the worst year ever for smartphone shipments, and with challenging market conditions continuing into the first quarter of 2019, the likelihood of a declining market this year becomes more of a reality, the market research firm claimed. Ryan Reith, Program Vice President with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers, says that “globally the smartphone market is a mess right now.” “Outside of a handful of high-growth markets like India, Indonesia, Korea, and Vietnam, we did not see a lot of positive activity in 2018. We believe several factors are at play here, including lengthening replacement cycles, increasing penetration levels in many large markets, political and economic uncertainty, and growing consumer frustration around continuously rising price points,” Reith said in a statement. IDC says that China, which accounts for roughly 30 percent of the world's smartphone consumption, had an even worse 2018 than the previous year with volumes down just over 10 percent. Surprisingly, at the same time the top four brands - all of which are Chinese (Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi) grew their share of the China market to roughly 78 percent, up from 66 percent in 2017. On a global level, the top five smartphone companies continue to get stronger and now account for 69 percent of smartphone volume - up from 63 percent a year ago. The market research firm says that if we include Vivo, which is currently number six in this list and has been in and out of the top 5 in recent quarters, the share of the top companies is 75 percent and growing. Anthony Scarsella, Research Manager with IDC, says that with replacement rates continuing to slow across numerous markets, vendors will need to find a new equilibrium that balances the latest smartphone features, compelling design, and affordability. “The arrival of both 5G and foldable devices later this year could bring new life to the industry depending on how vendors and carriers market the real-life benefits of these technologies. However, we expect these new devices to elevate average selling prices as new displays, chipsets, and radios will bring an increased price to the BOM (bill of materials), which will translate to higher price points for consumers. To combat this, carriers and retailers will need to fully maximize trade-in offers for older devices as a type of subsidy to push upgrades throughout 2019,” Scarsella added. Company-wise segregation of market share With a total smartphone shipment of 70.4 million units, Samsung saw volumes decline by 5.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018. Although the South Korean company maintained its top position for the quarter, its share fell below 20 percent to 18.7 percent. In the full year, the volumes were down 8 percent to 292.3 million. Samsung was just a few points above Apple and Huawei. Apple saw iPhone volumes drop 11.5 percent in the holiday quarter and the total iPhone volumes were down 3.2 percent for the full year as both the US and China “experienced the worst year for smartphone performance ever.” Huawei’s 4Q18 volumes were up 43.9 percent YoY and the volume in the whole year were up 33.6 percent. Huawei saw growing success from its Honor line of devices, which are now representing close to half of its overall volume. Oppo finished the quarter in the fourth position with full-year shipments of 113.1 million, up 1.3 percent from 2017. Xiaomi rounded out the top 5 in the fourth quarter of 2018 with full-year shipments up 32.2 percent YoY and volumes surpassing the 100 million. Like Oppo, India and Indonesia continue to be the focus markets outside of China. Xiaomi’s Redmi series devices continue to lead in emerging markets, IDC said. Related Read: Overall iPhone sales down 20% YoY in November: Counterpoint Research
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Highlights: An Israeli website has claimed that iOS 13 will not be supported on iPhone 6s and below A bunch of iPads won’t run iOS 13 Old iPhone users were in for a treat last year when Apple announced that the iOS 12 would support all the phones through iPhone 5s. It now seems that the company won’t be releasing any major OS updates for a series of old iPhones. Israeli media outlet The Verifier has claimed that the iOS 13 will be unavailable on the iPhone 5s, iPhone SE, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, and iPhone 6s Plus. When it comes to iPads, the news platform claims that Apple will allegedly drop support for the iPad mini 2, iPad mini 3, iPad Air, iPad Air 2, and the iPad mini 4. The sixth-generation iPod touch is also said to be incompatible with iOS 13. The website does not mention about the fifth generation of iPad, which uses the same A9 chip as the iPhone 6s. If Apple drops iOS 13 support from iPhone 6s, it means that the fifth generation iPad will also not be supported. Further, the website claims that along with a drop in support for iOS 13 on an array of devices, Apple will also drop support for some iOS 13 features to newer models to force user to upgrade to the latest iPhone models. It is true for a fact that Apple limits some features of the new iOS on some older devices due to hardware limitations. This could be taken as a fair argument, given that Apple has been supporting older devices for years after launch. The iOS 12 support on iPhone 5s is an example. Last year, Counterpoint Research attributed the lengthening replacement cycle as one of the reasons for the iPhones’ sales decline in the US and Europe. Analysts also said that the high cost of iPhones and the intense competition from Chinese smartphone makers were the reasons for Apple’s worst performance since 2014 in India, which is among the fastest-growing smartphone markets in the world. Famous analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has predicted a rocky start of 2019 for the Cupertino-based company, claiming that the iPhone sales will continue to be weak in the first half of 2019. For this, IDC says, Apple needs “to tell a strong iPhone and, more importantly, ecosystem story to succeed.” Counterpoint Research said that people are opting for Chinese phones because “it doesn’t make sense to pay sky-high prices for a product [iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR] that doesn’t have new features. Related Read: Overall iPhone sales down 20% YoY in November: Counterpoint Research
