Three electronics giants (Apple, Samsung and Sony) have published their results this week, showing that only Samsung managed to grow in the smartphone market over the past quarter.
Turnover drops for Sony and Apple
The Korean company’s tunover grew 6 % to 49.8 billion won (38.8 billion euro), accompanied by a 6.7 billion won (4 billion euro) profit. Apple’s turnover dropped for the first time in 13 years, down 13 % to 50.6 billion dollar (45 billion euro). Its profit (10.5 billion dollar or 9.5 billion euro) is still astonishing, despite the fact it even dropped 22 % compared to the year before.
Sony’s fourth quarter turnover reached 1.82 billion yen (15 billion euro), a slight drop compared to the year before when it reached 1.94 billion yen (15.8 billion euro). However, unlike its competitors Apple and Samsung, it failed to make a profit. Its losses, although lower than the 106.5 billion yen from last year, still stood at 88.3 billion yen (700 million euro).
Weaker smartphone sales
For its full fiscal year, which ended on 31 March, Sony did manage to make a profit for the first time in three years’ time, thanks to its excellent PlayStation sales, both in hardware and software. Its smartphone sales however halved in the fourth quarter alone, down to 3.4 million devices.
Apple also suffers from weaker smartphone sales: in the first quarter of 2015, it managed to sell 61.17 million iPhones, but that number dropped to 51.19 million devices this year. CEO Tim Cook had predicted that drop, as Chinese sales have been slowing down and the company failed to introduce a successor to its iPhone 6 model.
On the opposite site of the scale, Samsung did launch its Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge in March, two flagship devices that have boosted the Korean company’s sales numbers. As Apple failed to counter with its own product launch, Samsung’s mobile division reached its highest profit in the past three years: 3.9 billion won (3 billion euro).
Samsung shipped 81.9 million smartphones over the course of the first quarter, which gives it a 21.5 % market share. Apple had a 15.3 % market share, which is in fact a 3 % drop compared to last year, while Sony does not even feature in the top 5 of smartphone manufacturers. Those five largest companies take up more than 50 % of the market.
