Gartner’s Q3 Market Share Report Says Xiaomi, Apple, Huawei On The Upswing, While Samsung And Windows Phone Plunge

Gartner's Q3 market share figures are here, showcasing the low-down of various OEMs and Operating Systems' performance. In general, feature phones have continued to slump and they are down by 25 percent. Meanwhile, the smartphones have surged up by 20 percent. This means, the current total market share of smartphones and feature phones stand at 66 percent and 34 percent, respectively. Reportedly, the aforesaid decline is hurting two big OEMs and they are Samsung and Nokia/Microsoft.

With respect to regions, the emerging markets like Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa saw a growth of 50 percent. The U.S., on the other hand, saw the fastest growth among the developed markets. Meanwhile, the Western Europe fell by a slight margin, according to GSM Arena.

Moving on to the smartphone specific stats, the Chinese handset makers are the real threat to other OEMs, around the world. Somehow, the OEMs from China have managed to add cutting edge features and sell them at dirt-cheap price, when compared to other home-grown OEMs. Speaking of high-end devices, the Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are becoming two of the top sellers. And going by Gartner's report, the duo Apple handsets will reportedly break sales records during the holiday season.

Notably, Samsung is the most-affected OEM among the backmarkers. In specific, both the smartphones and feature phones sales went downhill by approximately 8 points, when compared to the same period in 2013. Apparently, China alone contributed to a decline of an overall 28.6 percent, whereas the sales in Western Europe and Asia took a hit as well.

On the brighter side, Apple's sales improved by 26 percent. However, there was only a slight improvement in the overall market share. Furthermore, Huawei has firmly positioned itself in the third place. However, Xiaomi and Lenovo are fast catching up with Huawei. With respect to the newcomers, Xiaomi has made its way to the top 5 OEMs list in 2014, while in 2013, the company managed only 1.5 percent of market share. Needless to say, Xiaomi is ruling Chinese market as well.

Moving on to the Operating Systems, Google's Android still holds 80+ percent market share, while Apple's iOS saw only a marginal improvement. On the other hand, the market share of Microsoft's Windows Phone has declined. Lastly, there is no good news for BlackBerry either, as its share went from 1.8 percent in 2013 to 0.8 percent in 2014, says Gartner.

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