It is interesting to note that mobile phones, like rock bands and automobiles, have their own very loyal groupies and the lines in the sand are clearly drawn. Although there will be those who jump the lines because the competition has made advances in technology, others are steadfast while waiting for their brand to make similar, or better, advancements. For years there were only three names in the running but, in recent years, new runners have joined the race. Let’s look at 14 years of mobile phone history to see which brands are still out in front and those that have become recent contenders.
In the Beginning It Was Nokia
Before the smartphone revolution began in 2007, the mobile phone global great was Nokia. In 2007 something that would change history was the introduction of the smartphone by Apple. According to a source mentioned in statistics by melita.com, the Nokia brand still held the market even though Apple began the challenge. As mentioned, there were diehard Nokia users who had followed their brand from the early days of flip phones, so they still reigned supreme. In 2007, Nokia held 49.44% of the global market share and was only down a few percentage points to 43.43% in 2008. Then, between 2007 and 2010, Nokia still averaged 42% of the global market share followed by:
- Blackberry with 15.8%
- Apple with 10.8%
- HTC with 5.1%
- Samsung with 3.7%
As you can see, Apple was a major contender in the global smart phone race, second only to the Finnish vendor Nokia, but all that was soon to change.
Major Developments Between 2011 and 2020
In previous years you will see that Samsung was trailing the pack by quite a few points. Then, something changed, and Samsung quickly gained a much stronger foothold in the global challenge. What many analysts feel is that Samsung quickly became a major contender because they offered an affordable smartphone with all the technology others had pioneered in. The high cost of Apple smartphones was a major factor, but as the recognized developer of smartphone technology with a proprietary operating system, iOS, even the high cost kept them solidly in contention for the win.
Throughout that decade, Samsung held fluctuating year-on-year percentages of the global market share averaging out to 23.20% which put them clearly at the head of the race. If you stop to wonder how 23.20% could put Samsung solidly in the lead as compared to Nokia’s 49.44% in the previous decade, it only takes knowing that several other brands were introduced. This took away from percentages of contenders in the race for domination of the global market shares.
A Quick Look at the Numbers Game
If you stop to think about it, smart phone sales followed similar patterns of almost any product on the market. In the first nine years of the decade, sales continued to rise year-on-year until 2019. Then, like most other products, sales dropped significantly in 2020. That is only understandable since the Covid-19 pandemic led to a shortage of product. Even so, the explosive growth of the smartphone market bears some attention.
To get a better understanding of just how quickly smartphone sales accelerated, let’s look at a few statistics. For example, the increase from 122 million phones having been sold in 2007 to more than 1 billion sold just seven years later in the year 2014 is an amazing leap! By 2019, smartphone sales continued to grow exponentially until the global market hit an amazing number of 1.5 billion phones being sold the year the world turned bleak. The following year, 2020, saw quite a dip with only 1.3 billion being sold which set the market back almost five years to the 2015 global market sales.
Summing It Up
What we have seen is that Nokia quickly lost its four-year winning streak to be taken over by Samsung, followed very closely by Apple. Oddly, even though Apple has three of the top five mobile phones in today’s market, Samsung still holds the lead in sales. Apple fans will be happy to know that iPhone models continue to lead global sales. With this in mind, you may be wondering how Samsung could still be the strong leader in the global race.
If you look at the wide range of mobile phone products produced and sold under the Samsung brand, it will become clear. Even with that said, don’t discount other brands like Xiaomi, Huawei and OPPO rising in global sales. It will be interesting to look back on this decade to see which brand comes out as the reigning king of global smartphone sales.