If you keep up to date on your Apple news, then you hear the numbers. Market share, market share, market share. It’s always about comparing Apple and Android’s dominance.
We’re all familiar with how the big players are doing in terms of market share. Companies like Google, Apple, Samsung, RIM, Nokia and HTC make the headlines every day. But what about the 36% of the mobile market that doesn’t get mentioned? That chunk of the cell phone space usually gets dubbed as the “other” part of your typical analyst graph. The graphs basically say, “Nothing to see here, move on.”
Just who are these no-name phone makers that are outselling all of the industry’s ‘top dogs’?
An interesting report in The Atlantic today tackles the largest part of the cell phone market that never gets mentioned — the “others.”
Quoting Gartner’s last quarterly numbers, the top 10 cell phone makers (Apple, Google, Samsung, Nokia, LG, etc.) control 64% of the market. Many of these companies, including past juggernauts like Nokia and RIM, are on a sharp downward trend in sales. By contrast, the ‘other’ phone makers out there have doubled their market share since 2004.
The unnamed chunk of the pie graph can be divided into three tiers: ‘mom-and-pop’ factories, smaller manufacturers, and up-and-coming phone companies that are poised to compete with the likes of HTC and Motorola.
These three tiers account for 36% of global phone market share and 153 million units sold last quarter. Discounting Nokia and Samsung, that’s more than all of the top 10 phone makers combined.
The bottom ‘mom-and-pop’ tier is clearly not going to become the next Fortune 500 company anytime soon, but when dozens of smaller factories are considered together, the numbers add up to something significant.
Next up are the slightly larger companies that are mostly located in China and India. These manufacturers make cheap ‘burner’ phones, but their sales are proof that not everyone can afford the newest iPhone. Together, this second tier sells about 30 million phones a quarter — that’s 10 million more than Apple.
At the top tier are domestic manufacturers like MicroMax in India. These companies have gone from making 0 phones to millions each quarter in a matter of a few short years. They sell a varied product line of cheap phones and smartphones, and they’re on the heels of top 10 companies like HTC.
What can be gleaned from a look at the ‘other’ part of the graph is that the mobile market is a much more interesting place than the media paints it to be. There’s a vibrant sector of unnamed manufacturers that are helping to drive consumer adoption of cell phones and the wireless age. It’s not all about Apple and Google. Nokia is still the best-selling brand in the world, and Apple is the new kid on the block with some catching up to do.
Alex Heath is a journalist who works for Tech Insider. He’s the former co-host of The CultCast. He has been quoted by the likes of the BBC, KRON 4 News, and books like “ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation.” He lives in Lexington, Kentucky. If you want to pitch a story, share a tip, or just get in touch, additional contact information is available on his personal site. Follow him on Twitter.
14 responses to “Who Are The Mystery No-Name Phone Makers Outselling Apple, Samsung and LG Combined?”
ZTE, Huawei, Blu, Alcatel, Konka ….
Perhaps this is because the media, including CoM, only seem to care about the smartphone market? I still don’t see any big benefit to owning a $200 phone with a $70 a month plan, when I can buy a touch, cheap phone, and pay 20 bucks a month for service. Yes, even here in The States a “burner’ phone can make a lot more sense than an iPhone or Galaxy.
I have heard it said that many of these domestic phone makers (for developing countries) are using Android as the base OS for these phones, which are not technically smart phones (more like Bar phones). Can anybody at Cult of Mac confirm this? It could explain the difference between many of the “Android” activations that Google is reporting, and the lower than expected Net usage by the Android OS for all of the reported activations.
Actually Huawei, which is probably one of the “up-and-coming”, just recently released a smart-phone for the african market. They used to build large quantities of cheap phones for developing countries, and have build a good brand recognition there. Now they introduced a sub-$100 (I heard $60) Android smartphone with full internet capabilities. This is still about a month income for most in Africa, but it becomes affordable that way. This is a big threat to established manufacturers, as several countries in africa start to become boom-states, people there are already familiar with the brand Huawei.
Alex, if Jasalo88 can come up with the names of the “others” such as “ZTE, Huawei, Blu, Alcatel, Konka” then you could too. Try to put some effort into your articles and be more informative rather than just “phoning it in” and do a little research to paint a picture of what your article actually is making a point about, rather than just writing and saying, “oh, look at that thing over there” and calling it a day. Right?
Last I checked Samsung had bypassed Nokia….or is that only in “feature/smart” phones?
I heard OTHER 5G schedule to be release tomorrow…