Samsung and Vivo are the World’s fastest 5G smartphone vendors in Q1 2021, according to the latest report from research firm Strategy Analytics.
Last year, Apple saw a huge growth in the 5G smartphone market, thanks to the popularity of the 5G-enabled iPhone 12 series, which lead to a total estimated shipment of 52.2 million units in Q4 2021. But the overwhelming shipment of 5G-capable phones from other popular brands like Samsung and Vivo made Apple fall down by 23% market share in Global 5G smartphone shipment in Q1 2021.
The research firm has estimated that Apple shipped 40.4 million in Q1 2021, a decline from 52.2 million in Q4 2020. A surge in demand for the 5G smartphone witnessed great success for Vivo and Samsung quarter on quarter. Vivo has shipped an estimated 19.4 million 5G smartphones registering 62% Quarter on Quarter (QoQ) growth.
Samsung jumped to 79% QoQ growth with a total shipment of 17 million units in Q1 2021. Chinse manufacturer Xiaomi also saw a growth of 41% QoQ which helped the company to ship an estimated 16.6 million units in Q1 2021, a good rise from 11.8 million shipments in Q4 2021. The research firm forecasts global 5G smartphone shipment to reach a record 624 million units for the current year, a big jump from 269 million units in the last year.
Associate Director at Strategy Analytics, Ville-Petteri Ukonaho said,
“Samsung is performing well with new 5G models, such as Galaxy S21 5G, S21 ultra 5G, and S21+ 5G, in South Korea, North America, and parts of Europe”. Further, he added, “OPPO grew 55% QoQ, and Xiaomi increased 41% QoQ, both due to solid volumes at home in China. Meanwhile, Apple dipped 23% QoQ, following a blowout Q4 2020 where the new 5G iPhone was wildly popular as a gift during the holiday season“.
OnePlus Merges into OPPO
OnePlus has finally made an official announcement about the company’s integration with OPPO. Lau through an official form post wrote,
“As many of you know, last year I took on some additional responsibilities to oversee product strategy for both OnePlus and OPPO. Since then, we have integrated a number of our teams together with OPPO to better streamline our operations and capitalize on additional shared resources. After seeing positive impact from those changes, we’ve decided to further integrate our organization with OPPO.”
The statement confirms that OnePlus and OPPO now share the same R&D team. However, Lau claims that the OnePlus will continue to operate independently. He mentions that the integration will help OnePlus to release faster and more stable software updates. A OnePlus spokesperson confirmed that OxygenOS will remain the operating system for all OnePlus global phones.