Hi guys,
For those of you that don’t know I work in the telecommunications industry and get access to various bits of data. What I’ve been doing for a while now is compiling data from various sources including data direct from Vendors and market research organisations as well as data points I have access to with estimates from myself in order to understand how the smartphone market is performing every year.
You can see my previous report here which covers Q2 and Q3 2014. The report below covers the whole of 2014. I’ve been very busy so have recycled a lot of the writing but changed the numbers to reflect this full calendar year.
This report covers the global smartphone market for calendar year 2014 which runs from January 1st through to December 31st. I have made sure the data used in this report is as accurate as possible and even included a number of data points that are not available publicly.
0. Global Market – 1301m
A total of 1301m smartphones were shipped in calendar year 2014. This is an almost 29% increase over the same period last year when a total of 1010m smartphones were shipped. Smartphone shipments are set to continue growing in 2015 at a slightly slower rate and we should see over 1500m smartphones shipped. Android held the largest share this year with approximately 1060m Android devices shipped. This is equal to around 82% market share. Apple shipped a total of 192.7m iOS devices in 2014 giving them a total of just under 15% market share. Windows Phone was the third biggest OS with a total of ~39m shipments which gives them around 3% market share. Around 95% of all Windows Phone shipments were Lumia branded devices, around 30% of all Android smartphones were Samsung branded devices.
1. Samsung – 318.1m
Samsung was the biggest smartphone vendor once again with 318.1m smartphones shipped during calendar year 2014. This gives Samsung an overall 24% market share which is down from the 30% market share that Samsung had during 2013. Samsung has seen increased competition in China where a number of local Chinese brands have taken over, In Europe where price consciousness is starting to grow and even in the USA where Apple is putting up a fight. Although Samsung has long relied on its high-end devices, its mid-range and low-end models drove volume for the quarter and subsequently drove down ASPs. Samsung was the only company to lose significant market share out of the big 5 and we may see this continue into 2015. Samsung have sold in less than 40 million Galaxy S5’s worldwide and Galaxy S4 cumulative sales have exceeded 70m.
2. Apple – 192.7m
Apple was the second largest smartphone vendor in 2014 with a market share of 15%. Apple sold in 153.4m units in 2013 which gave them the same share of 15%, Apple is growing in line with the market and has seen excellent sales across all markets. Apple had a record Q4 with sales of 74.5m which almost matched Samsung (75.5m). Apple has seen huge growth in it’s home market as well as overseas thanks to the launch of the iPhone 6 as well as the larger screened iPhone 6 Plus which has seen success in many developing markets. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have sold more than 70 million units cumulatively and sales for both devices are expected to exceed 100 million before the end of Q1 2015.
3. Lenovo – 96.5m
After acquiring Motorola, Lenovo is now the third biggest smartphone manufacturer in the world with an 7.5% market share. Lenovo has found success in emerging markets such as Africa, Middle East, Asia and its home country of China where it has released a number of low cost 4G handsets. Motorola has seen success in western markets but has started to tap into a number of emerging markets such as South America. 40% of Lenovo’s sales currently come from China with Lenovo now looking to launch their Motorola brand into the competitive China market.
4. Huawei – 75.0m
Huawei have done very well this year gaining a 6% market share with 75 million units shipped. This can be attributed with Huawei’s push with 4G LTE devices and brand promotion across all markets. The Huawei Ascend P7 has sold in more than 4 million units and Huawei’s latest flagship phone, the Ascend Mate 7 has sold in more than 2 million units worldwide. The popular Honor brand smartphones have sold cumulative 20 million units in 2014. Around 38% of the phones shipped during 2014 support 4G LTE and Huawei’s mobile device business plan to ship over 100 million smartphones in CY2015.
5. Xiaomi – 61.1m
Xiaomi have come out of nowhere to become the fifth largest smartphone manufacturer worldwide. Not many people know who Xiaomi are as over 90% of their shipments are to China with the remaining 10% being sold in to emerging markets such as India and south east Asia. Xiaomi have yet to tap into the western market but it looks like they don’t need to as they’ve grown rapidly in the past year. During the same period last year Xiaomi barely scratched 19 million units. This year their shipment number has more than tripled. Xiaomi are aiming to ship 100 million units in CY2015 despite increase competition in their home market.
6. LG Electronics – 59.2m
LG saw smartphone shipments increase by 24% YOY led by the LG G3 which has sold in almost 10 million units worldwide. The LG G3 and the L Series smartphones have allowed LG to grow in line with the market however they will face a tough year ahead in 2015. North America have been the biggest contributor to LG this year where shipments have grown by around 40%. LTE smartphone sales are up by over 100% YOY.
7. Coolpad – 49.1m
Coolpad are a smartphone brand in China. Despite the fact they only ship in China they are the 7th largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. In China they are leading the way in 4G smartphone shipments after launching over 12 new 4G models this year. In fact just under 40% of all of shipments from Coolpad were 4G smartphones. Coolpad won’t ever reach the same shipment numbers that other Chinese manufacturers like Lenovo, Xiaomi and Huawei will get to because they ship domestically whilst the others rely on the international market for increased sales.
8. ZTE – 48.0m
ZTE are a Chinese brand who sell a number of devices in their home market and overseas. They were once on par in terms of shipments with Huawei but Huawei have expended massively thanks to their international expansion, ZTE are still yet to grow massively outside of Asia. But Asia is still enough to give ZTE the 8th position in terms of worldwide shipments.
9. TCL – 41.5m
Many of you may not have heard of TCL, over here in the west they are known as Alcatel and they are becoming a major brand worldwide this year thanks to their “One Touch” series. TCL have seen huge growth in 2014 with shipments increasing 136% YOY from 17.6m . TCL has seen the biggest revenue increase in the Americas region as well as it’s home market. What many people don’t know is that TCL is actually massive when you combine their smartphone + feature phone shipments, only 56% of their total shipments are smartphones an cumulative sales of smartphones and feature phones exceeded 73.5m in 2014.
10. Sony – 40.0m
Sony is not in the best of places. They were committed to selling in 50 million smartphones for FY2014-15 but after looking at the first 3 quarters they’ve revised the number down to 39m The Z series smartphones have been very popular for Sony but not popular enough to increase sales significantly YOY due to lack of interest in North America and China. In fact sales have barely increased YOY. Sony will focus on their mid and high end handsets and hope to extend the lifecycle between their flagship devices.
Honourable Mention: Microsoft – 35.4m
After acquiring the Lumia brand, Microsoft hasn’t been able to break the top 10 with only just over 11 million units sold in the last quarter of 2014. The Lumia brand accounts for around ~95% of all Windows Phone smartphones and so it can be seen that Windows Phone hasn’t taken off yet. Growth has stagnated YOY and no one is expecting Windows Phone market share to grow at all. The general consensus at the moment is that Windows Phone will always be that “third place” OS. However Windows 10 will bring a renewed interest in Windows Phone but it’s not expected to have a huge impact. We'll have to wait and see how Microsoft will try and promote Windows 10 on Mobile.
Others-
- Blackberry sold in over 8 million smartphones worldwide during 2014. This is down compared to the almost 23 million sold in during the same period last year. The number of active Blackberry subscribers is now less than 33 million.
- HTC are not to be seen on the top 10 list anymore with less than 20 million units sold in 2014. It’s all doom and gloom for HTC and they even lost their number 1 place in their home market to Apple in the last quarter of 2014. HTC has sold in more than 5 million units of its flagship M8 handset.
- Oppo achieved cumulative shipments of over 20 million units in 2014.
- Asus sold in 8.5 million units in CY2014 with more than 4.5 million in the last quarter alone. This is thanks to the popularity of their Zenfone in both their home as well as overseas markets.
- Acer sold in just under 5 million units in 2014.
Active smartphone install base:
There is now over 2.2 billion active smartphone users worldwide. Android users account for over 1.6 billion active smartphone users, Apple accounts for over 420 million, Windows Phone accounts for 50 million smartphone users and Blackberry has 33 million. The other category accounts for over 30 million.
Conclusion
Once again it’s all about China with 6 of the top 10 being Chinese vendors each shipping between 40 million and 100 million smartphones in 2014. Companies like Xiaomi and TCL have seen tremendous growth whilst Huawei, Coolpad and ZTE are continuing to grow at a healthy rate. Samsung have seen sales remain flat whilst Apple continue to grow in line with the market and exceed expectations. It’s clear that 2015 is going to see a fight from Samsung to maintain smartphone shipments whilst the other manufacturers including Apple edge ever closer. Samsung is far from being dethroned but they need to do something soon to maintain their market share.
Comparison time:
Number of smartphones sold in 2014: 1301m
Number of PC’s sold in 2014: 316m
Number of tablets sold in 2014: 230m
Number of home consoles sold in 2014: 34.8m
Number of dedicated handhelds sold in 2014: 11.2m
For those of you that don’t know I work in the telecommunications industry and get access to various bits of data. What I’ve been doing for a while now is compiling data from various sources including data direct from Vendors and market research organisations as well as data points I have access to with estimates from myself in order to understand how the smartphone market is performing every year.
You can see my previous report here which covers Q2 and Q3 2014. The report below covers the whole of 2014. I’ve been very busy so have recycled a lot of the writing but changed the numbers to reflect this full calendar year.
This report covers the global smartphone market for calendar year 2014 which runs from January 1st through to December 31st. I have made sure the data used in this report is as accurate as possible and even included a number of data points that are not available publicly.
0. Global Market – 1301m
A total of 1301m smartphones were shipped in calendar year 2014. This is an almost 29% increase over the same period last year when a total of 1010m smartphones were shipped. Smartphone shipments are set to continue growing in 2015 at a slightly slower rate and we should see over 1500m smartphones shipped. Android held the largest share this year with approximately 1060m Android devices shipped. This is equal to around 82% market share. Apple shipped a total of 192.7m iOS devices in 2014 giving them a total of just under 15% market share. Windows Phone was the third biggest OS with a total of ~39m shipments which gives them around 3% market share. Around 95% of all Windows Phone shipments were Lumia branded devices, around 30% of all Android smartphones were Samsung branded devices.
1. Samsung – 318.1m
Samsung was the biggest smartphone vendor once again with 318.1m smartphones shipped during calendar year 2014. This gives Samsung an overall 24% market share which is down from the 30% market share that Samsung had during 2013. Samsung has seen increased competition in China where a number of local Chinese brands have taken over, In Europe where price consciousness is starting to grow and even in the USA where Apple is putting up a fight. Although Samsung has long relied on its high-end devices, its mid-range and low-end models drove volume for the quarter and subsequently drove down ASPs. Samsung was the only company to lose significant market share out of the big 5 and we may see this continue into 2015. Samsung have sold in less than 40 million Galaxy S5’s worldwide and Galaxy S4 cumulative sales have exceeded 70m.
2. Apple – 192.7m
Apple was the second largest smartphone vendor in 2014 with a market share of 15%. Apple sold in 153.4m units in 2013 which gave them the same share of 15%, Apple is growing in line with the market and has seen excellent sales across all markets. Apple had a record Q4 with sales of 74.5m which almost matched Samsung (75.5m). Apple has seen huge growth in it’s home market as well as overseas thanks to the launch of the iPhone 6 as well as the larger screened iPhone 6 Plus which has seen success in many developing markets. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have sold more than 70 million units cumulatively and sales for both devices are expected to exceed 100 million before the end of Q1 2015.
3. Lenovo – 96.5m
After acquiring Motorola, Lenovo is now the third biggest smartphone manufacturer in the world with an 7.5% market share. Lenovo has found success in emerging markets such as Africa, Middle East, Asia and its home country of China where it has released a number of low cost 4G handsets. Motorola has seen success in western markets but has started to tap into a number of emerging markets such as South America. 40% of Lenovo’s sales currently come from China with Lenovo now looking to launch their Motorola brand into the competitive China market.
4. Huawei – 75.0m
Huawei have done very well this year gaining a 6% market share with 75 million units shipped. This can be attributed with Huawei’s push with 4G LTE devices and brand promotion across all markets. The Huawei Ascend P7 has sold in more than 4 million units and Huawei’s latest flagship phone, the Ascend Mate 7 has sold in more than 2 million units worldwide. The popular Honor brand smartphones have sold cumulative 20 million units in 2014. Around 38% of the phones shipped during 2014 support 4G LTE and Huawei’s mobile device business plan to ship over 100 million smartphones in CY2015.
5. Xiaomi – 61.1m
Xiaomi have come out of nowhere to become the fifth largest smartphone manufacturer worldwide. Not many people know who Xiaomi are as over 90% of their shipments are to China with the remaining 10% being sold in to emerging markets such as India and south east Asia. Xiaomi have yet to tap into the western market but it looks like they don’t need to as they’ve grown rapidly in the past year. During the same period last year Xiaomi barely scratched 19 million units. This year their shipment number has more than tripled. Xiaomi are aiming to ship 100 million units in CY2015 despite increase competition in their home market.
6. LG Electronics – 59.2m
LG saw smartphone shipments increase by 24% YOY led by the LG G3 which has sold in almost 10 million units worldwide. The LG G3 and the L Series smartphones have allowed LG to grow in line with the market however they will face a tough year ahead in 2015. North America have been the biggest contributor to LG this year where shipments have grown by around 40%. LTE smartphone sales are up by over 100% YOY.
7. Coolpad – 49.1m
Coolpad are a smartphone brand in China. Despite the fact they only ship in China they are the 7th largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. In China they are leading the way in 4G smartphone shipments after launching over 12 new 4G models this year. In fact just under 40% of all of shipments from Coolpad were 4G smartphones. Coolpad won’t ever reach the same shipment numbers that other Chinese manufacturers like Lenovo, Xiaomi and Huawei will get to because they ship domestically whilst the others rely on the international market for increased sales.
8. ZTE – 48.0m
ZTE are a Chinese brand who sell a number of devices in their home market and overseas. They were once on par in terms of shipments with Huawei but Huawei have expended massively thanks to their international expansion, ZTE are still yet to grow massively outside of Asia. But Asia is still enough to give ZTE the 8th position in terms of worldwide shipments.
9. TCL – 41.5m
Many of you may not have heard of TCL, over here in the west they are known as Alcatel and they are becoming a major brand worldwide this year thanks to their “One Touch” series. TCL have seen huge growth in 2014 with shipments increasing 136% YOY from 17.6m . TCL has seen the biggest revenue increase in the Americas region as well as it’s home market. What many people don’t know is that TCL is actually massive when you combine their smartphone + feature phone shipments, only 56% of their total shipments are smartphones an cumulative sales of smartphones and feature phones exceeded 73.5m in 2014.
10. Sony – 40.0m
Sony is not in the best of places. They were committed to selling in 50 million smartphones for FY2014-15 but after looking at the first 3 quarters they’ve revised the number down to 39m The Z series smartphones have been very popular for Sony but not popular enough to increase sales significantly YOY due to lack of interest in North America and China. In fact sales have barely increased YOY. Sony will focus on their mid and high end handsets and hope to extend the lifecycle between their flagship devices.
Honourable Mention: Microsoft – 35.4m
After acquiring the Lumia brand, Microsoft hasn’t been able to break the top 10 with only just over 11 million units sold in the last quarter of 2014. The Lumia brand accounts for around ~95% of all Windows Phone smartphones and so it can be seen that Windows Phone hasn’t taken off yet. Growth has stagnated YOY and no one is expecting Windows Phone market share to grow at all. The general consensus at the moment is that Windows Phone will always be that “third place” OS. However Windows 10 will bring a renewed interest in Windows Phone but it’s not expected to have a huge impact. We'll have to wait and see how Microsoft will try and promote Windows 10 on Mobile.
Others-
- Blackberry sold in over 8 million smartphones worldwide during 2014. This is down compared to the almost 23 million sold in during the same period last year. The number of active Blackberry subscribers is now less than 33 million.
- HTC are not to be seen on the top 10 list anymore with less than 20 million units sold in 2014. It’s all doom and gloom for HTC and they even lost their number 1 place in their home market to Apple in the last quarter of 2014. HTC has sold in more than 5 million units of its flagship M8 handset.
- Oppo achieved cumulative shipments of over 20 million units in 2014.
- Asus sold in 8.5 million units in CY2014 with more than 4.5 million in the last quarter alone. This is thanks to the popularity of their Zenfone in both their home as well as overseas markets.
- Acer sold in just under 5 million units in 2014.
Active smartphone install base:
There is now over 2.2 billion active smartphone users worldwide. Android users account for over 1.6 billion active smartphone users, Apple accounts for over 420 million, Windows Phone accounts for 50 million smartphone users and Blackberry has 33 million. The other category accounts for over 30 million.
Conclusion
Once again it’s all about China with 6 of the top 10 being Chinese vendors each shipping between 40 million and 100 million smartphones in 2014. Companies like Xiaomi and TCL have seen tremendous growth whilst Huawei, Coolpad and ZTE are continuing to grow at a healthy rate. Samsung have seen sales remain flat whilst Apple continue to grow in line with the market and exceed expectations. It’s clear that 2015 is going to see a fight from Samsung to maintain smartphone shipments whilst the other manufacturers including Apple edge ever closer. Samsung is far from being dethroned but they need to do something soon to maintain their market share.
Comparison time:
Number of smartphones sold in 2014: 1301m
Number of PC’s sold in 2014: 316m
Number of tablets sold in 2014: 230m
Number of home consoles sold in 2014: 34.8m
Number of dedicated handhelds sold in 2014: 11.2m
Samsung does actually pretty awful in Japan. Japan I believe in terms of % is the country Apple has the largest lead in against the competition.