Global sales of smartphones to end users returned to growth in the first quarter of 2018 with a 1.3% increase over the same period in 2017, according to Gartner, Inc. The delayed sales boost for Apple from last quarter materialized, as the company’ smartphone unit sales returned to growth in the first quarter of 2018, with an increase of 4% year-on-year.
“Even though demand for Apple’s iPhone X exceeded that of iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, the vendor struggled to drive significant smartphone replacements, which led to slower-than-expected growth in the first quarter of 2018,” says Anshui Gupta, research director at Gartner. “With its exclusive focus on premium smartphones, Apple needs to significantly raise the overall experience of its next-generation iPhones to trigger replacements and lead to solid growth in the near future.”
Compared to the first quarter of 2017 sales of total mobile phones stalled and reached 455 million units in the first quarter of 2018, says Gartner. Nearly 384 million smartphones were sold in the first quarter of 2018, representing 84% of total mobile phones sold.
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