While global smartphone sales to end users were down 4.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017, Samsung[1] retained its top spot with 18.2 percent share, Gartner said on Thursday.
The South Korean giant though saw a year-on-year unit decline of 3.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017, but this did not prevent it from defending its top global smartphone vendor position against Apple[2].
"Despite the start of a slowdown in sales of Samsung's Galaxy S8[3] and S8+[4], the overall success of those models has helped Samsung improve overall average selling price," Gartner said[5].
Samsung is set to announce the successors to its Galaxy series of smartphones at the Mobile World Congress (MWC)[6] in Barcelona over the next weekend.
"The launches of its next flagship devices are likely to boost Samsung's smartphone sales in the first quarter of 2018," the report said.
Overall, the global smartphone sales hit nearly 408 million units in the fourth quarter -- a 5.6 percent decline over the fourth quarter of 2016.
This is the first year-on-year decline since Gartner started tracking the global smartphone market in 2004.
Two main factors led to the fall in the fourth quarter of 2017.
"First, upgrades from feature phones to smartphones have slowed down due to a lack of quality "ultra-low-cost" smartphones and users preferring to buy quality feature phones," said Anshul Gupta, Research Director at Gartner.
"Second, replacement smartphone users are choosing quality models and keeping them longer, lengthening the replacement cycle of smartphones," he added.
While Apple's market share stabilised in the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to the same quarter in 2016, iPhone...