HTC Corp (宏達電) maintained a 3.1 percent share of the global smartphone market in the first quarter as its share gains in North America were offset by losses in other regions, US brokerage Morgan Stanley said on Friday.
The brokerage firm said the Taiwanese firm’s market share rose slightly to 4.2 percent in the quarter in North America from 3.5 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, thanks to the launch of the 5-inch HTC Droid DNA phone, which went on sale in November last year through US carrier Verizon Wireless.
However, the company was not able to drive up its global market share, given ongoing share losses in the European, the Middle East and African (EMEA) markets, and slow progress in the Asia-Pacific region — especially in China, Morgan Stanley said in a report.
Photo: AFP
The report detailed how HTC’s market share in the EMEA markets fell to 3.7 percent from 4.2 percent in the fourth quarter, with market share in the Asia-Pacific region shrinking to 2.7 percent from 3 percent.
Meanwhile, the top four Chinese handset makers increased their share to 28 percent in the first quarter, compared with 21 percent in the same period of last year, at the expense of international brands, including Apple Inc, Morgan Stanley analysts said.
“We see local Chinese brands gaining share as positive for [chip designers] MediaTek Inc (聯發科技) and Spreadtrum Communications Inc (展訊). Our research also suggests strong smartphone chipset growth in the second quarter of 2013,” the analysts said.
The top four Chinese vendors are Huawei Technologies Co (華為), ZTE Corp (中興), Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) and Coolpad (酷派), Morgan Stanley said.
Tech tracking firm International Data Corp (IDC) reported on April 25 that Huawei and ZTE were the world’s fourth and fifth-largest smartphone suppliers respectively in the first quarter, thanks to incremental gains in shipments.
Huawei shipped 9.9 million units in the quarter, up 94.1 percent from one year earlier to take a 4.6 percent share of the global market, while ZTE’s shipments grew 49.2 percent year-on-year to 9.1 million units for a 4.2 percent market share.
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co remained the world’s largest smartphone vendor with shipments of 70.7 million units, up 60.7 percent from one year earlier, for a 32.7 percent share of the global market, IDC said.
Apple came in second with 37.4 million units shipped in the three-month period for a 17.3 percent share, while South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc shipped 10.3 million units to hold a 4.8 percent market share, according to IDC.
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