Gartner, a market research initiation, stated in a recent report that the biggest winner of the increase in the global mobile market was neither Apple nor Samsung, but rather three Chinese smartphone makers, especially as Apple's sales stabilised in the first quarter. Apple's steady sales are well-adjusted after sales of the company fell sharply in 2016. On the other hand, its main competition, Samsung, saw a significant decline in sales on the global level. According to the report, consumers worldwide bought 380 million smartphones in the first quarter of 2017, up by 9.1% from the same period last year, which shows that worldwide consumers are ready to spend more than before, which also indicates that prices will go up in the coming period. Chinese companies are the main beneficiaries of the growth of the smartphone market globally, including Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo. Garnet noted that these companies accounted for a collective market share of 24% of all sales in the first quarter of 2017, which is up by 7% compared to the same period in 2016. Samsung sold fewer phones in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period a year ago. Its sales reached 78.6 million devices in the first quarter this year, compared to 81.2 million for the same period last year. Samsung's sales slump impacted its market share, where it dropped to 20.7% from 23.3%. Its competition, Apple, sold 51.99 million mobile devices, up from 50.8 million devices. Yet, its market share also declined to 13.7% from 14.8% in the same period last year. Huawei ranked third in terms of market share in the global mobile market by taking a market share of 9%, increasing from 8.3% in the first quarter of 2016. In fourth place came Oppo with a market share of 8.1% during the first quarter of the current year, up from 4.6% in the same period last year. Vivo came in fifth, with a market share of 6.8%, boosting its previous record of 4% in the first quarter last year. The growth of Chinese handset sales and Samsung's dominance of a large share of global mobile market sales reflects the increasing market share of Google Android's mobile operating system. The gap between Android and iOS continued to grow apart, where the former accounted for a market share of 86.1% up from 84.1%.
