failure Galaxy Note 7 to TRANSLATION through a decrease of 11.3 million units in the sales of Samsung smartphones in Q3 2016 and implicitly a decrease in the market share. The market share decreased by 13.5% compared to the same period last year, the reduction being almost three times compared to the one registered by the Apple company in the same fiscal quarter.
In the case of Apple, sales decreased by 4.5 million units in Q3 2016 compared to Q3 2015, but the percentage decrease in market share is lower than in the case of Samsung. Of course, these are only estimates made by analysts regarding Samsung's sales because the company does not disclose exactly how many terminals it sells in each fiscal quarter.
Even so, Samsung is in a very difficult situation at the moment, Apple also having problems, and the Chinese manufacturers have taken full advantage of this. As you can see in the graph below, Huawei, Oppo and Vivo recorded substantial increases in smartphone sales in Q3 2016 compared to the same period last year.
Samsung's market share in the smartphone segment is dropping significantly
Huawei smartphone sales increased by 6.3 million units in a single year, reaching 33.6 million units worldwide. Oppo's sales increased by 13.9 million units and reached 25.3 million in Q3 2016, this being the largest increase among all manufacturers monitored worldwide.
Finally we come to Oppo, the sales of this manufacturer increasing by 10.7 million units compared to T3 2015, something impressive and somewhat predictable. All 3 manufacturers are from China and they all stole sales from Apple, Samsung and more, to become serious competitors for these giants of the smartphone industry.
The danger for Apple and Samsung comes from China, and if the trend continues, then in this fiscal quarter of next year, Huawei will surpass Apple in smartphone sales. This will be an extremely hard blow for the Apple company, but it remains to be seen if the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will be able to help it stay in the top.
