latest
Google's selling a whole bunch more Pixels now than it was a year ago
Manufacturers are still struggling to fill the void LG left in the budget segment
Despite stiff competition from Apple, Android smartphones remain strong sellers in the North American market, and there's plenty of room for all the big smartphone brands to fight for their piece of the pie. Google's been slowly working to increase its own share, and we've seen more and more people choosing a Pixel over other options. Now the latest Canalys market report sheds some light on Q2 shipments, and shows Google clocking some impressive growth.
Chromebook sales might be headed for a cliff
Has the bubble finally burst for Chrome OS or is there a light at the end of the tunnel?
Chromebook sales have been growing since the first models appeared all the way back 2011. But when the pandemic hit in 2020 sales began to surge and peaked this summer with nearly 12 million units sold. Despite this massive success, it appears the market has reached its saturation point, and the latest reports show shipments of Chromebooks are down by 37% compared to last year, a drop of over 3 million units.
There's no stopping Chromebooks from dominating the world
Despite a slowdown in PC growth, Chromebook sales continue to surge
Chromebooks have proven to be terrific machines for students — or really, just about anyone working from home these days. Chromebooks have seen tremendous sales over the past year, with whopping 275% year-on-year growth in the first quarter of 2021. While growth has now slowed, Chromebook sales continue to do strongly in Q2 2021.
Only Samsung sold more smartphones than Xiaomi last quarter, with Apple dropping to 3rd place
Jumping in the gap left by Huawei
With former rising star Huawei out of the way due to US sanctions, another Chinese manufacturer is emerging to take over the smartphone market — Xiaomi. The company could grow its shipments by a whopping 83% in the second quarter of 2021, making it the vendor with the second highest market share at 17%. It's only narrowly surpassed by Samsung with a share of 19%.
Chromebook sales skyrocketed in Q3 2020 with online education fueling demand
Google-powered hardware enjoyed incredible third-quarter growth, up 122% year-on-year
Demand for cheap but reliable PCs has never been higher since the global pandemic forced students across the country to shift to distance learning. Thanks to the affordability and dependability of Chromebooks, institutions are moving to Google's platform to bring students online, leading to tremendous sales growth worldwide.
You didn't buy a Samsung Galaxy S20 this spring, research finds
Costly phones will make it hard for people to get with 5G
Research house Canalys tracked 31.9 million smartphone shipments in the U.S. for the second quarter, down 5% from last year. Diverging plotlines between the novel coronavirus pandemic and the trade war with China are putting intense pressures on the industry in terms of cost and product strategy.
Huawei is now the biggest smartphone maker in the world as Samsung's slump worsens
US restrictions haven't hurt Huawei at home where it dominates the market
If you'd told me Huawei would rise to be the world's biggest smartphone vendor this time last year, I would have laughed you out of the room, and yet here we are. The COVID-19 pandemic has hit many companies very hard, but Samsung's decline has been steeper than most as many of its key markets are suffering. Meanwhile, Huawei now sells 70% of its smartphones in China, whose economic recovery has been relatively swift in recent months.
Smartwatch shipments are up 12% in Q1 2020 despite the coronavirus outbreak
Apple and Fitbit lost market share to Huawei, Garmin, and Samsung
You would think that smartwatch shipments fell sharply this year due to many people being confined to their homes during lockdown orders, but the market is alive and well with a 12% growth compared to last year's first quarter, according to Canalys. However, the news isn't great for every player: Apple's and Fitbit's share annual growth turned negative while Huawei, Samsung, and Garmin are the winners of Q1 2020.
The smartphone market is absolutely foundering due to coronavirus, unsurprisingly
Nobody wants to spend money on a phone during a pandemic
The coronavirus has led to lockdowns all over the world and left many people with less to no income or in fear of a recession. Combine that with closed factories, and you have a recipe for economic impacts rippling through all industries. The smartphone market is not immune to these effects, either, and worldwide shipments have fallen by 13% year-over-year (YOY) due to coronavirus. Companies moved only 272 million units in Q1 2020, which is the lowest level since 2013.
Although smartphones are almost a necessity in the modern world, smart speakers and smart displays don't enjoy the same kind of perception despite their much lower cost. Case in point, Samsung alone shipped 78.9 million phones in Q3 2019, while all the smart speaker manufacturers in the world combined shipped less than 30 million units in the same time period. Smart speakers with displays take up an even smaller share. Regardless, both the smart speaker and smart display markets continue to be hotly contested, and most companies experienced healthy year-over-year growth in Q3 2019. The major exception was Google, whose market share dropped like a rock.
Ever since the global smartphone market started to decline back in 2017, it has stubbornly remained stagnant. Surprisingly, the trend has finally reversed itself as the global smartphone market has managed to eke out a 1% growth in Q3 2019, just barely reversing the two-year-long decline. The resurgence was led by market share leaders Samsung and Huawei, who experienced double-digit annual growth rates from Q3 2018. On the other hand, two of the top five smartphone vendors — Apple and Xiaomi — experienced single-digit declines in market share, while the number five Oppo saw some minor growth.
Analytics firm Canalys is reporting that global smartphone market share for Google’s Android OS platform is at a colossal 48%, with an overall lead in 35 out of the 56 countries tracked by Canalys. According to the report, the total global smartphone market has grown by 73% year-on-year with a total of 107.7 million devices shipped in Q2 2011. Android-based devices are the main culprit behind this astounding growth with an increase in shipments of 379% from over a year ago totalling 51.9 million units shipped in Q2 2011. Android sales in the Asia-Pacific region are particularly impressive, especially in South Korea and Taiwan where Android holds 85% and 71% market share, respectively.
According to Don Kellogg from the Nielsen Company, 31% of all mobile phone users in the U.S. own some type of a smartphone. More interestingly, it appears that the race for market share in the U.S. by the leading smartphone platforms - Android, iOS and BlackBerry - is in a dead heat.
Just a few weeks after Android became the number one smartphone platform in the US, Canalys is reporting that strong sales of Android devices in Q4 2010 has helped it overtake Nokia's Symbian OS to became the world's best selling mobile platform.