1.46 bln smartphones will be produced in world next year

Baku. 27 January. REPORT.AZ/ The global smartphone production volume for 2016 grew 4.7% annually to reach 1.36 billion units in total, Report informs referring to market research firm TrendForce. Samsung continued to top the annual global ranking despite the discontinuation of Galaxy Note 7, suffering a marginal decline of 3.3% compared with the 2015 figure.

Chinese brands Huawei, OPPO and Vivo respectively occupied the last three spots in the global top five and followed closely behind the second-place Apple. TrendForce points out that the total production volume of all Chinese brands for 2016 was 629 million units, surpassing the volume of 519 million units jointly from Apple and Samsung. Going forward, Chinese smartphone makers together are expected to account for around 50% of the global market in 2017, posing even greater challenges to other international brands.

Apple’s iPhone production volume fell 11.5% annually to 209 million units in 2016. The general reception to the major iPhone releases last year – iPhone 7 and 7 Plus – was average at best as both models lacked innovations that excite consumers. Though Apple was second place in 2016 ranking with 15.3% of the global market share, the market share difference with the third-place Huawei was just around five percentage points.

The general market expectation for 2017 is that the next iPhone release, which is the 10th anniversary edition (and currently labeled “iPhone 8”), will shoulder the burden of driving sales for Apple.

LG’s production volume performance not particularly impressive during 2016 as its flagship G5 did not gain significant traction in the market upon release during the year’s first half. The brand’s performances in mid-range and low-end segments were also generally lackluster. As a result, LG was only able to increase its production volume by 10% annually to 75 million units.Global production volume of smartphones will rise to 1.46 billion shares.