US smartphone sales decline 6% in Q1, Apple leads

San Francisco, May 3: Apple led the US smartphone market with 47 per cent market share, followed by Samsung at 28 per cent and Motorola at 12 per cent, a new report showed on Tuesday.

Overall, US smartphone sales were down 6 per cent (on-year) in Q1 2021, according to Counterpoint Research.

"While Q1 2022 did see weaker sales compared to last year, this needs to be seen in context. It is not a sign of the market contracting because last year's Q1 was unusually high due to several factors driving demand," said Research Director Jeff Fieldhack.

Apple's iPhone 12 series sales pushed into Q1 2021 due to its staggered launch causing higher premium demand in a usually soft quarter.

Apple revenues reached over $14 billion. iPhone 13 sales made up close to 80 per cent of all iPhone sales in the quarter.

"Looking at Q1 2022, there were still solid performances from Apple and Samsung, with Motorola, Google, TCL and OnePlus seeing YoY increases in volumes due to LG's exit," Fieldhack added.

"Apple and Samsung continued to dominate the market with a combined 75 per cent share and had some of their best performances to date.

"However, some attention should also be brought to smaller OEMs that are beginning to capture more mindshare of consumers due to LG's exit," said Research Analyst Matthew Orf.

Motorola has been very aggressive, becoming the third largest OEM in 2021.

"In Q1 2022, its market share reached 12 per cent, the highest quarterly share to date. TCL also made big gains in market share to reach almost 3 per cent," said Orf.

COVID-19 lockdowns are once again resurfacing in parts of Asia, but they have not impacted supplies so far.

"There will also be massive network migrations occurring as 2G and 3G sunsets come to fruition this year," said Senior Research Analyst, Maurice Klaehne.