Please find our finalized in-depth Q4 2014 global mobile phones: smartphone & featurephone shipments, marketshare and rankings by region and key countries from our Market Monitor service. The report tracks more than 65 top vendor shipments every quarter across regions and countries which contribute to more than 90% of the total global phone volumes and much more at country level. We continue to track multi-million local brands such as India’s Lava, Bangladesh’s Symphony Mobile, Pakistan’s QMobile, Indonesia’s Evercoss, Philippines’ Cherry Mobile, Nigeria’s Tecno and others.

Summary of the report:

• Global mobile phone shipments crossed more than half a billion units for the first time ever growing a very healthy 12% annually, ending the year 2014 with more than 1.8 billion mobile phone shipments
• Global smartphone shipments reached 382 million units in Q4 2014 up a 26% annually and now contributes to 73% of the total mobile phone shipments and crossing 1.3 billion mark for the full year 2014
• China smartphone shipments grew a modest 7% annually and down 5% depicting the high growth days are coming to an end as shipments reached 103 million units but we estimate it to pick up speed November onwards moving in to Chinese holiday season as the 3G/4G inventory levels stabilize
• China smartphone market still remains bigger than North America+Latin America+Middle East Africa combined and ending the year with 430 million units
• India was the largest featurephone market in the world with shipments peaking in Q3 2014 and starting to take a dip as smartphone demand continues to climb
• India remained the third largest smartphone market in the world bigger than Japan+Korea+Malaysia+Thailand or France+UK+Spain combined in terms of volumes but still a fourth of China smartphone market and almost half of USA smartphone market
• Japan smartphone demand was flat in spite of pent-up demand for the new iPhones whereas S.Korean handset demand was affected due to the new Handset Distribution Act and the market shrunk to around 3 million units from 5 million units last year
• Latin America smartphone shipments reached a record high growing 20% annually. Brazil now ships more smartphones than Japan recording close to 13 million shipments during the quarter
• Middle East Africa was the fastest growing market during Q4 2014, as smartphone shipments almost doubled annually. The proliferation of low-cost smartphones from brands like Alcatel, Techno, Huawei are driving the smartphone demand in Africa whereas brands such as Lenovo, Apple & Huawei are growing fast in Middle East region
• Samsung & Apple continued to dominate Europe and North America smartphone markets with 63% and 51% share combined respectively. Strong operator channels relationships and entrenched distribution channels are helping these brands still dominate these high ASP regions
• Samsung continued to see its shipments, revenues and profits continue to slide in chase to protect marketshare from Asian brands at one end and Apple on the other
• Samsung’s global handset market share declined to 18% in Q4 2014 from a peak of 27% in Q3 2013 and global smartphone marketshare plummeted to 19% in Q3 2014 from the peak of 32% in Q3 2013
• Apple was the star performer during the quarter as it raced away to become the largest smartphone supplier and second largest mobile phone player on the planet surpassing Samsung & Microsoft respectively
• Apple shipped almost 75 million iPhones during the quarter generating more than $50 billion in revenues, a record which none of the mobile phone brand has been able to ever achieve taking a massive slice of mobile phone industry revenues and profits
• Apple also became the largest smartphone brand in China surpassing likes of Xiaomi, Lenovo and the upcoming Chinese holiday season will help maintain the momentum
• Lenovo (with Motorola) combined shipped almost 25 million smartphones during the quarter, cementing its place as the third largest smartphone company in Q4 2014 and tying with Huawei in terms of overall mobile phone shipments for the third spot
• Huawei shipped an impressive slightly under 25 million mobile phones with strong demand in China (in LTE segment) and overseas markets such as Europe and Latin America. Huawei’s year old Honor branded phones are proving to be a good growth story to fight rivals such as Xiaomi & Lenovo
• Xiaomi, after fourteen quarters of sequential growth, saw its shipments fall 5% QoQ but still almost tripled its volumes annually as a result doubling its marketshare in smartphone segment.
• The days of easy growth are over for Xiaomi as the Chinese brand’s demand peaked in home markets and stuttering global roll-out with IP battles not helping to maintain momentum
• Meanwhile, TCL-Alcatel became the second largest smartphone brand in Latin America surpassing LG and fifth largest in USA & Middle East Africa.
• In US market, ZTE almost doubled its shipment volumes and making good inroads in prepaid segment taking share away from Samsung, Huawei and others
• In India, the smartphone market grew a healthy 33% annually with growing traction from domestic and Chinese OEMs. However, Samsung continues to dominate (lone bright spot) the India smartphone segment with 27% market share followed by Micromax and a new third player Intex with 190% and 6% market share respectively
• Brands such as Symphony and Evercoss are growing fast in Bangladesh and Indonesia markets respectively whereas Oppo and Vivo are the one to watch out charting strong growth story in Asian markets and expanding in regions such as Middle East, LATAM and Europe.