Chinese phone brand Oppo pushes iPhones into fourth place in global sales charts for handsets

Samsung remains in first place, with 75.1 million handsets shipped last quarter, while Chinese firms Huawei and Oppo both outsold the iPhone

High prices are a sticking point for the iPhone, while Chinese brands’ strategies are better aligned to customers’ needs, say analysts

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The flagship Huawei P30 Pro handset. The Chinese smartphone maker shipped the second highest number of handsets, after Samsung, in the second quarter, and the five leading Chinese smartphone brands had a combined 42 per cent market share. Oppo pushed Apple’s iPhone into fourth place. Photo: Ben Sin

Published: 12:38pm, 13 Aug 2019Updated: 1:10pm, 13 Aug 2019

Apple lost more ground in the shrinking smartphone market last quarter, with a sales tracker saying the tech giant was pushed off the top-three seller list by a Chinese rival.

Apple fell to fourth place in global smartphone sales, shipping 35.3 million iPhones in the second quarter compared to the 36.2 million units shipped by Oppo, according to a report from IHS Markit.

South Korean consumer electronics titan Samsung remained in first place with 23 per cent of the market, having shipped 75.1 million smartphones, China’s Huawei shipped 58.7 million smartphones to claim 18 per cent of the market, IHS Markit calculated.

“Apple continues to face challenges in terms of unit shipments – a trend that is unlikely to be fixed soon,” says IHS smartphone research and analysis director Jusy Hong.

Oppo shipped 36.2 million smartphones last quarter, compared to Apple’s 35.3 million iPhones.

While California-based Apple has been aggressively promoting iPhones, current generation smartphones have “super premium” prices while models a few years old are still costly compared to bargain Android-powered handsets, he says.