Recently, foreign research and investigation institutions released the global smartphone sales report in the third quarter of 2018. The results show that the growth trend of most mobile phone manufacturers' sales slowed down, but Chinese brands such as Huawei and Xiaomi showed a significant growth. The report points out that in the third quarter of 2018, the global smartphone growth was 1.4%, with a scale of 389 million. But if Huawei and Xiaomi are not included, the global smartphone sales will decline by 5.2%, indicating the growth of Chinese brand mobile phones, which is the main key to drive the global smartphone sales in the third quarter of 2018.
In conclusion, the top Chinese mobile phone manufacturers in the third quarter of this year focused on low-cost smartphones, enhanced camera functions and high-resolution screens, driving sales in emerging markets. Although the growth of most mobile phone manufacturers' mobile phone sales slowed down, Huawei's mobile phone sales increased 43% in the third quarter, maintaining the first place in China, ranking in the top three in the European market, and the gap between Samsung and Huawei continued to narrow.
It is worth mentioning that in the third quarter, Samsung's smartphone sales fell by 14% compared with the same period last year, the biggest drop since Samsung counted the number of mobile phone sales. In 2018, Samsung tried to drive the demand recovery with Galaxy S9, S9 + and note9, but the results were not significant. Now, Samsung continues to face strong competition from China's major mobile phone manufacturers, which makes Samsung face many difficulties.
Apple, on the other hand, rose 0.7% in the third quarter compared with the same period last year. The iPhone is in the saturated top smartphone market. In addition to the small growth, the competition in the Chinese market is more and more fierce.
With the rapid decline of global smartphone sales, the attention of mobile phone manufacturers began to shift to new technologies such as 5g and foldable shape to provide differentiated smartphone experience and create new user value. At present, several manufacturers such as Samsung, Huawei and LG are expected to launch foldable mobile phones in 2019.