Apple's 5G Smartphone Market Share Falls After Initial Boom As Samsung, Vivo Register High Growth

Apple Inc’s AAPL global 5G smartphone shipment share dived to 29.8% in the first quarter from 40.7% a quarter ago, data from research firm Strategy Analytics revealed.

What Happened: Apple’s shipment volumes fell 23% to 40.4 million units in the first quarter sequentially, following a blowout fourth quarter when the new 5G iPhone was wildly popular as a gift during the holiday season.

The Cupertino, California-based Apple embraced the growing 5G networks in October last year with the launch of iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, and 12 Pro Max, the first iPhones to support 5G connectivity.  

Rival smartphone makers such as Samsung and Vivo emerged as the world’s fastest-growing 5G smartphone vendors in the first quarter, as per the research report.

Samsung shipments grew 79% on a month-on-month basis, while Vivo's jumped 61.7%.

On a consolidated basis, global 5G smartphone shipments grew 6% QoQ to 136 million units during Q1.

Global 5G Market Share: Despite the fall, Apple still sits on top of the chart in terms of market share. China’s Oppo and Vivo held 15.8% and 14.3% share of the global 5G smartphone shipments, respectively, while Samsung came fourth at 12.5%, as per the report.  

The research firm expects global 5G smartphone shipments to reach a record 624 million units in 2021, soaring from 269 million in full-year 2020, on the back of strong demand from China, the United States, and Western Europe. 

See Also: Apple To See Revenue Growth Ahead Of Street Expectations Through 2025, Munster Estimates

“Samsung is growing very fast in 5G smartphones, but it does have a major portfolio gap in China. Samsung has extremely low presence in China, the world’s biggest 5G market, and this remains a significant drag on the vendor’s outlook,” Woody Oh, Director at Strategy Analytics said.

“Conversely, Chinese vendors largely have no presence in the high value US market, and this will be a drag on their ability to grow revenue or profit.” 

The research firm attributed Samsung’s growth to new 5G models, such as Galaxy S21 5G, S21 ultra 5G and S21+ 5G, in South Korea, North America, and parts of Europe. 

For Vivo, the growth was driven by its iQOO U3 5G and U7 5G smartphones. Vivo’s 5G smartphone strongholds are China and Europe, as per the report.

Why It Matters: Mobile network operators in the U.S. are rushing to deploy 5G capabilities and adoption is likely to pick up speed in the coming years. As per Loup Ventures analyst Gene Munster, “5G upgrade cycle will be multiyear, as carrier 5G speeds improve over the next few years.”

At present 5G carrier coverage is more built out in China compared to the rest of the world. Apple is relatively new to the 5G space compared with South Korea’s Samsung, which first launched a 5G-enabled smartphone in 2019.

Price Action: Apple shares closed 0.39% higher at $130.15 on Wednesday.