YoY smartphone sales remained stagnant in the US
As time changes, we expect the smartphone market to change along with it. Ideally, we want to see growth in the market, but that is not what we’re seeing based on the latest numbers. A recent report shows us that the YoY US smartphone sales in Q4 of 2021 basically reflected the sales in Q4 of 2020. This is very evident when taking into account how many phones each of the major carriers sold last year. T-Mobile was the only carrier that was able to make any notable gains in smartphone sales. Verizon pretty much stayed the same, and AT&T actually saw close to a 4% dip. While it took a loss, it’s not too significant. Research Director Jeff Fieldhack remarked that there was heavy competition in the market. Each carrier had aggressive promotions to push phones.
There’s a shortage of premium phones (which does NOT help)
Unfortunately, adding to the situation is the shortage of premium smartphones that people can buy. These carriers were (and are) having trouble getting supplies from the OEMs. This contributed to the poor numbers that we got. Senior Analyst Hanish Bhatia said that there was some QoQ (quarter over quarter) improvement last year with Android phones, but overall, the numbers were low.
How did the OEMs do?
When it comes to how the OEMs performed, the numbers really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Apple continues its massive lead in the US smartphone market. It snagged about 57% of the smartphone market last quarter which dwarfs the other companies. In Android land, Samsung, unsurprisingly, leads with 24% of the market. Below that, the slices on the pie chart get really thin. In third place, Motorola was able to grab an impressive 9%, and that leaves the rest of the top companies with less than 3% each. Alcatel (4th place) and OnePlus (5th place) both grabbed 2% of the market. Trailing behind them is Google with 1% of the market. The remainder of the OEMs in the market make up 5% overall. So, as it stands, the future of smartphone sales in the US is pretty unclear. In all honesty, everything is unclear. We’re all excited about the new phones that will launch this year, but we’re going to have to deal with delays. For example, Samsung is going to delay the Galaxy S22 Ultra for about three months. Only time will tell if this shortage will be resolved in the near future.
