Apple saw big drop in higher-end smartphone market in 2Q

Apple saw big drop in higher-end smartphone market in 2Q. August. 22, 2016 07:07. by 박성진 기자psjin@donga.com.

Apple has turned out to be struggling not only in the entire smartphone market, but also in the high-end group, in the second quarter of this year, while Korea's Samsung Electronics and China's Huawei continued increasing their market shares, both in the mid-to-low to high-priced smartphones.

The market survey company Bloomberg Intelligence (BI) said on Sunday that in the second quarter of this year, Samsung Electronics increased its market share by 4.4 percentage points to 35.9 percent year-on-year in the global flagship smartphone market priced over 500 dollars (approximately 560,000 won). However, Apple lost 9.2 percentage points to 50.9 percent.

The gap narrowed as Samsung's Galaxy S7 series released in March became a hit while Apple's iPhone 6s receded, Bloomberg Intelligence said. Furthermore, Huawei's market share at the high-end smartphones nearly tripled from 1.2 percent to 3.5 percent year-on-year

Apple's struggle is continuing in the mid-to-low price line-ups as well. According to market research firm Gartner, the three manufacturers also showed similar traits market share in the entire smartphone market, including their mid-to-low price lineups in the second quarter of this year. While Samsung raised its shares by 0.5 percentage points to 22.3 percent year-on-year, Apple’s market share dropped by 1.7 percentage points to 12.9 percent. Over the same period, Huawei’s market share saw an increase of 0.9 percentage points year-on-year at 8.9 percent.