In the fourth quarter of 2015. iPhone sales in the global smartphone market year-on-year declined by 4.4% to 71.5 million devices, says the American research company Gartner. This is the first in the history of the Apple smartphone sales slump.
Gartner data do not coincide with official information that Apple presented in its most recent accounts (fourth quarter of 2015 from the American company is considered the first quarter of the new fiscal year). From October to December 2015 were sold 74.8 million to 74.5 million iPhone versus a year earlier, following statements from Apple. Discrepancies in data representative of Gartner explains that Apple considers sold and those that are still retail, and Gartner considers only sold to the end buyer gadgets.
According to analysts, in October-December 2014 Apple ranked first in the world in sales of smartphones from 74.8 million units (Samsung, ranked second, has sold just over 73 million). A year later, Samsung has dethroned Apple from its leadership position – the companies managed to sell and 83.4 million to 71.5 million units. The share of Apple in the smartphone market in units in the fourth quarter of 2015 declined to 17.7 per cent against 20.4% in the previous year. The share of Samsung rose from 19.9 to 20.7%. Overall, in 2015 the share of iPhone on the world market rose by 0.5 percentage points to 15.9%, in absolute terms, iPhone sales increased 18% to 225,8 million.
Aggressive pricing policies of local B-brands and Chinese manufacturers in the mid and budget segment in emerging markets has led to the fact that buyers become more affordable to buy a smartphone to replace the old ones, says research Director Gartner Anshul Gupta.
“Budget smartphones in developing countries and strong demand for premium devices will remain the main growth drivers,” said Gupta. In his opinion, the main factor that negatively affected the sales of manufacturers, including Apple, — exchange rate fluctuations of currencies.
Currency fluctuations seriously affect the results of Apple, because 2/3 of its revenue is generated from sales outside the United States, was quoted in January 2016 Bloomberg, Apple CEO Tim cook.
Major markets including Brazil, Russia, Japan, Canada, Southeast Asia, Australia, Turkey and the EU, has affected the economic slowdown, falling commodity prices and weakening currency, he said. With the end of the financial 2014 (September 2014), for example, canadian dollar, Australian dollar, Mexican peso and the Turkish Lira has declined against the dollar by 20% or more, the Brazilian – more than 40%, the Russian ruble by more than 50%: these figures operated cook. $100 of revenue, in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2014, Apple earned in other currencies outside of the U.S. in the first fiscal quarter of 2016, turned in $85, noted cook.
In Russia, the share of iPhone in the smartphone market in the fourth quarter of 2015 at the pieces year-on-year dropped by half to 7.5% (previous year it was 15%), lead “Vedomosti” the words of a leading analyst of Mobile Research Group Eldar Murtazin. In the middle of the year the iPhone was even less, but the situation straightened restored iPhone 5s, he said. The main reason is that the iPhone due to the devaluation of the ruble became too expensive. The decrease in market share was due to the fact that the first two months of 2015 on the background of the collapse of the ruble iPhone not actively sold on credit, says Murtazin. Finally, the pressure on sales Apple had a price war between the Russian retailers, which began in the spring of 2015, he said.
In April 2015, MTS announced that will sell in their salons smartphones at prices, close to cost. After the termination of cooperation with “Coherent” the operator hoped thus to attract to their doors more visitors and increase the number of new connections. A side result of this war was the fact that MTS has become a major seller of Samsung in Russia – in late spring 2015 products, the company refused to trade with “Euroset” and “Svyaznoy”. The retailers attributed this high level of marriage and a source close to the Korean manufacturer, is reducing margins on its sales due to price war.
Due to the fact that MTS sells Samsung smartphones almost at cost, so that the most affordable modification of the iPhone 6s is about 57 000 rubles, and the South Korean flagship Samsung Galaxy S6 is around 35 000 rubles, which does not add to the popularity of the iPhone, says Murtazin.
