Smartphone sales closed out 2015 with a modest gain over 2014, says Gartner. Phone makers shipped 403 million units during the fourth quarter, pushing the full-year total to about 1.4 billion. Those figures represent a 9.7% and 14.4% improvement, respectively, when compared to 2014, but 2015 saw the slowest growth rate since 2008.
Samsung shipped 83.4 million devices during the fourth quarter, compared to Apple’s shipments of 71.5 million. Huawei followed with 32 million, Lenovo shipped 20 million, and Xiaomi shipped 18.3 million. These top five vendors owned 20.7%, 17.7%, 8%, 5%, and 4.5% of the smartphone market, respectively. The “others” grouping, which contains Microsoft, LG, Sony, Alcatel, and ZTE, was responsible for combined shipments totaling 177 million.
