This ball had been sung some time ago, but now we have confirmation: at least not Brazil, 2016 was a dreadful year for the iPhone and, considering that the device is the absolute flagship of its manufacturer’s sales, for Apple as a whole.
Data from the consulting firm Counterpoint, released by Folha de S.Paulo (closed matter for subscribers), show that the smartphone market in Brazil decreased significantly last year, with a decrease of 16% in sales compared to 2015. On the other hand, in the last quarter of the year things have already shown a sign of improvement, with a 15% recovery in relation to the previous quarter.
In this context, analyzing the share held by the main manufacturers operating in the country, Apple was by far the one that took the biggest tumble. If Ma couldn?t boast a lot about the end of 2015, when she had 8.3% of market share national smartphone market, let alone at the end of the following year, when the figures were reversed: now its share of meager 3.8%, falling more than half in the annual comparison.
With the collapse, Apple lost fourth place among smartphone manufacturers operating in Brazil: this position now occupied by Alcatel, which, unlike Ma, almost doubled its participation in the national market and now holds 5.5% of it. Third comes LG, which fell slightly to 12.4% and lost the second position to the Motorola, which, in turn, remained almost stable at 12.9%.
The relaxed and calm leadership in the Brazilian market, as you have all predicted since the previous paragraph, of an old acquaintance of ours. THE Samsung not only a leader in how it managed to increase its share in the Brazilian market over the past year, rising from 40% to 46.7%, which at least proves that Brazilians have much more important things to worry about than explosive phones.
Overall, the reading is clear: manufacturers offering cheaper handsets were successful in 2016, while Apple, even with a lower-cost smartphone for its standards at least, suffered from a line of prices considered scary for a large part of the population . By this logic, it could be said that it is absolutely normal and it is expected that Ma will have a small share of the national market.
In any case, the concern here is not the number, but the fall. Just consider that, in general, things are improving as shown by the survey itself, 90% of cell phones sold in Brazil in 2016 were smartphones, and in the year-over-year comparison the number of models equipped with support for 4G networks rose 53%. The question is that if Apple continues to lose ground around here even with this scenario, the warning signal will sound with force at the company’s Brazilian branch. Just don’t ask me what steps could be taken to reverse this.
(tip from @luizhfeliciano)
