Apple Leads the $100 Billion+ Smartphone Market with 42 Percent Share

The global smartphone market posted record first-quarter revenues driven by strong revenue growth of top five OEMs, according to Counterpoint Research. The annual growth was on a lower base of the same quarter of 2020 when COVID-19 impacted China and parts of the US and Europe.

Shipments in countries like Europe, China and India were stronger than expected. The supply chain players prioritised the top five brands enabling them to launch flagships earlier than their usual cycle, which boosted their market performance despite the supply shortage issues during the quarter.

“Global smartphone segment clocked a record first-quarter wholesale shipment revenues of $113 billion, up 35% YoY. This is coming at a time when the industry was facing supply chain constraints. Apple captured a record first-quarter revenue share driven by the strong performance of the iPhone 12 Series and demand spill-over from the previous quarter due to delayed launch. Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo also clocked record shipments and revenues this quarter, helped by capturing Huawei’s share globally and significant 5G uptake in China,“ said Harmeet Singh Walia, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research.

“Samsung regained the top spot with the successful launch of the Galaxy S21 series, with pent-up demand across Europe, US, Korea and other markets. At the same time, the demand for iPhone 12 series remained strong as Apple reached a record first-quarter market share in the US, China, India and Japan. Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo registered an all-time high global market share globally and across markets such as China, Europe, Latin America and South Asia. All three brands successfully filled the gap left by Huawei and are positioned well to further grow across these regions,“ said Varun Mishra, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research.

“Semiconductor shortages have affected the overall supply landscape and increased the lead times of chipset solutions for major vendors. However, we see these vendors looking to diversify their foundry strategy to alleviate chipset shortages in the second half of this year. In the longer term, to avoid the repetition of such semiconductor supply bottlenecks, which have become a geopolitical issue, we expect a tech cold war between the US, Korea, Taiwan and China. The aim is to reduce dependence on a few foundries by investing hundreds of billions of dollars to build domestic capabilities,“ said Tarun Pathak, Research Director at Counterpoint Research.