Apple and Samsung both announced a decrease of market share. What are the consequences of this loss of market share for themselves, competitors?

As what Strategy Analytics had announced last week, Apple and Samsung saw their smartphones market share declining when in fact the global shipment grew. It seems to show that the smartphones market are getting competitive. Apple and Samsung, being the market leaders, could no longer stay on their pedestal perhaps any much longer, compared to a few years ago.

No doubt, the two heavyweights are still the top two in the smartphones market, but the other players are catching up pretty well. Such examples are Huawei and Lenovo, players from China. As with any technology, new players are entering the market or old players who are catching up in technology, brought with them more choices for the consumers.

Both Apple and Samsung have in fact, their own pain points. Samsung, for example, is facing tough competition from Apple at the higher-end market and faces Huawei at the lower end. As for Apple, they are losing volume in the fast-growing emerging markets due to the lack of a ‘budget iPhone’. Even with the introduction of the iPhone 5c, it is still considerably not affordable for the masses in emerging markets in Latin America where Apple has seen a drop in shipment volume to this market which on the other hand result in tremendous growth for Huawei and Lenovo instead.

Huawei, as reported by CNET.com, has also been expanding swiftly in Europe while Lenovo has been aggressive outside China, especially Russia. Amongst the growth, the most growth seen are really not the top four but other small players in the market.

This is understandable, especially so since Apple and Samsung has by far been largely catered to the developed market, while it is still seen as too expensive for the emerging countries, notably India, China and Latin America. In contrast, the small players has seen growth in volumes in these emerging markets.

We could also see that there is little growth in the developed market at this point. Practically, almost everyone now has a smartphone and it has reached its saturation point. The only way for Apple and Samsung to overcome this stagnation would probably be to innovate and come out with something new or start making cheaper smartphones for the masses, to really overcome the drop in market share.