Samsung's Quarterly Phone Sales Dwindle
26 November, 2018
Samsung posted global smartphone sales of $17.95 billion in the third quarter, second only to Apple but down 12.5 percent from the same quarter last year, U.S. market watcher Strategy Analytics said Sunday.
Apple and China's Huawei, OPPO and Vivo all saw sales increases from July through September. Huawei's surged a whopping 91 percent on-year to $12.3 billion. Until last year, the combined sales of China's big three phone makers fell short of Samsung's, but now Huawei and Oppo's combined sales have overtaken the Korean electronics giant's.
The difference in the average sales price of a smartphone, a barometer of profitability, has also narrowed between Samsung and Huawei. A Samsung phone cost on average $248, up $2 from the year before, but Huawei's average was $238, or $73 higher.
Thus the price difference between Samsung, which focuses on high-end phones, and Huawei, which targets the low- to mid-market segment, was just $10.
Chinese competitors have narrowed the tech gap with Samsung. Innovative and cutting-edge features in camera and display technologies have helped Chinese handsets lead in both price and profitability.
In March, Huawei released the P20 Pro with three camera lenses and the world's first AI chipset for smartphones, the Kirin 970-980. In February, Vivo introduced the bezel-less Apex with a screen-to-body ratio of 99 percent and the X21UD with a built-in fingerprint scanner under the screen.
To repel the Chinese siege, Samsung will release a smartphone with foldable screen next year and its Galaxy S10 with high-speed 5G network service.
An industry insider said, "If Samsung fails to impress with its new models next year, its share of the global market will further erode."
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