Global smartphone sales increase 13.5 per cent in Q2

China is hugely important for the world’s smartphone manufacturers, representing 30% of the overall sales in the second quarter, which totalled 330 million units. Cupertino achieved a 2.4% year-on-year increase in market share, fueled in part by a 68% increase in Chinese sales. iPhone sales overall were up 36% year-on-year, and Gartner says Apple’s growth in the high-end segment is chipping away at its rivals’ premium phone sales and profit margins.

China-based Huawei Technologies had the highest sales growth rate of 46%, making it the No. 3 smartphone provider.

“Its poor performance negatively affected the performance of the mobile phone market in the second quarter”, Gartner’s research director Anshul Gupta said in a statement. In terms of operating system (OS) market, Android saw its global share being affected by the weak performance of China and the strong performance of Apple in the Asian nation.

China is being hit by sputtering sales of smartphones, suggesting sales have reached a saturation point.

Worldwide smartphone sales saw the most sluggish growth since 2013 during this year’s second quarter, with sales in China dropping for the first time, claimed research firm Gartner in a report Thursday.

SAMSUNG ELECT LTD(F) (OTC: SSNLF) lost market share over the second quarter, while Apple Inc. Gartner attributed the gains to stronger sales overseas as well as solid 4G smartphone sales in China.

In developed APAC – a category GfK defines as consisting of Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan – unit sales increased 6% year-on-year to 14.7 million units. Past year during the same quarter, its market share was 26.2%. “Although there a bit of slow down seen in few markets but growth in many emerging markets in Asia continued to be in line with our expectations”.

As for Samsung, the electronics giant continues to get squeezed by Apple’s surge after the company matched the larger screen sizes of Samsung’s Galaxy line with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

Gupta said Microsoft continued to struggle to generate wider demand for Windows Phone devices – even at the lower end.

Rounding out the top five smartphone vendors were Huawei (7.8 percent), Lenovo (5 percent), and Xiaomi (4.9 percent).

Global vendors such as HTC, Samsung, and Sony Corp (ADR)(NYSE:SNE) wrestled to attain growth in the high end segment of the market.