Samsung has been holding on to the top spot in the global mobile market for a few years now. The sheer volume that it pumps out every year has enabled it to retain that spot year after year. Many might have thought that the company would slip to second place after the Galaxy Note 7 debacle but that hasn't been the case. Samsung has retained the top spot but it did see the biggest drop in its smartphone market share in history post-Galaxy Note 7.
Market research firm Gartner has released a new report which shows that Samsung still sold more smartphones than any other company and that it retained the top spot even after having its worst quarter as far as sales are concerned. The company's market share in Q3 2016 was calculated to be 19.2 percent as opposed to 23.6 percent during the same time last year. Sales in the third quarter as a whole decline 14.2 percent which is the company's worst performance ever, the last time it saw that big of a drop was back in the fourth quarter of 2014 when sales declined by 12.3 percent.
While there was speculation that perhaps Apple is going to benefit from the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco as people will spend money on other flagships, that doesn't seem to be the case. China's Huawei, Oppo and BBK Communication Equipment were actually the only smartphone vendors in the global top five to increase their sales and market share. Even Apple saw iPhone sales decline by 6.6 percent in the third quarter of 2016 so it didn't really benefit that much from Samsung's troubles.
