iPhone 7 And 7 Plus Were Best-Selling Smartphones In First Half Of 2017

The Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus were the two best-selling smartphones in the first half of 2017, as per IHR reports. The smartphone shipped almost 21.5 million units that captured six per cent of the total market share, the report said.

The research frame claimed that the Apple iPhone has been the most popular smartphone worldwide during the first half of the year with iPhone 7 Plus being the second most popular smartphone. The Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime Plus gained the third place followed by iPhone 6s and Galaxy S8.

“Global smartphone shipments reached a robust 353.3 million units in first quarter of 2017. The top-five most popular models together accounted for 1 in 6 of all smartphones shipped worldwide during the quarter,” said Neil Mawston, Executive Director Strategy Analytics, in a statement on Wednesday.

The sales of flagship devices from the two largest smartphone manufacturing companies lagged compared to previous years, according to IHS. Shipment volumes of new iPhones declined compared to previous iPhones during the same period in 2016. The market share of iPhone models continued to fall from 10% in 2015, 7% in 2016 to 5% in the first half of 2017.

The number of smartphone models that sold more than 1 million units per month in the first half of 2016 was 17 and it climbed to 22 in the first half in 2017. Out of 22 top-shipping models, 8 are from Chinese vendors, with each model shipping at least 6 million units, claims IHS. Out of these 8 models, Oppo claimed five of the most popular phones, Xiaomi claimed two and Huawei claimed one.

Jusy Hong, Associate Director, Mobile Devices, IHS Markit, said, “This is a direct result of smartphone OEM efforts to select and concentrate in order to improve product portfolios and increase profitability”. In addition, more Chinese OEMs are selling their smartphone models outside of China, which intensifies competition and generates more globally popular models.”

The statistics may change in the second half of the year with launch of Apple’s new smartphones and Google unveiling Pixel and Pixel 2, and Xiaomi launching its much awaited bezel-less smartphone, Mi Mix 2.