Cloudy Forecast
Fitch Ratings, a global credit rating company, forecast on August 12 that the sales-based market share of Samsung Electronics’ smartphones, which reached its peak of 31 percent last year, will drop to 25 percent next year.
Fitch also projected that Apple’s market share will decline to 14 percent from last year’s 15 percent.
Fitch analyzed that intense competition among smartphone companies in emerging markets is the main reason for declining market share. Local companies in emerging markets, where price is more important than brand or advanced technology, are selling budget mobile phones which have most major functions at US$100 to US$300.
Fitch mentioned Xiaomi, Lenovo, and Huawei of China, as well as Micromax of India, as the main competitors against Samsung and Apple.
Fitch forecast that the global smartphone market will grow by 20 percent to US$12 trillion in size this year, but sales of Samsung and Apple will stay stagnant at around 450 to 460 million phones.
However, Fitch added that this trend will not affect Samsung’s credit rating. which will be constantly maintained at A+.