Analysts at Counterpoint Research report an 11 percent increase in global smartphone shipments in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the same period in 2016. Experts note a significant improvement in the situation in the industry, as a year earlier the market recorded a decrease in shipments by 2%.

According to expert estimates, in January-March, manufacturers produced 375 million smartphones against 337.2 million a year earlier. The degree of penetration of communicators in the mobile phone market analysts estimate in 80%. It is also noted that a dozen leading smartphone brands controlled almost 73% of the market.

Expensive devices, with a price of $ 400, account for almost 20% of the worldwide shipments of smartphones. At the same time, in the segment of premium-class devices, a decline was registered, which analysts associate with the decrease in iPhone shipments before the upcoming update, as well as the Galaxy S7 / S7 + shipments limitation on the eve of the release of the new flagship model Galaxy S8.

"In 2016, the industry saw the slowest growth in sales of smartphones. Nevertheless, we believe that in 2017 the situation will improve, and we will fix the rise in supplies by 6-8%. The main driving factors will be the expansion of LTE infrastructure in developing countries and the deployment of Gigabit LTE networks in more developed markets, "said Jeff Fieldhack, director of research at Counterpoint Research,.

Also in the report on the tradition contains data on the alignment of forces between vendors. Samsung in the quarter showed better than expected results, shipping 80 million smartphones. Compared to last year, shipments rose 1%. As a result, the South Korean company broke out into the leaders with a market share of 21.3%.

Apple, on the contrary, showed a negative trend: its supply fell by 1%, to 50.8 million units, taking into account that the US corporation controlled 13.5% of the market.

Huawei broke another record, releasing 34.6 million smartphones in January-March, indicating an annual growth of 22%. The share of the Chinese vendor in Counterpoint was estimated at 9.2%.

Oppo and Vivo once again became the fastest growing brands in the ranking: companies increased shipments by 92% and 82% year on year and delivered 25.5 and 22.

7 million smartphones respectively. With this in mind, their contribution to the global indicator was 6.8% and 6.1%.

LG, thanks to strong results in North America, the Latin American region and Korea, was the sixth in the list with a shipping rate of 14.8 million units and a share of 3.9%.

Further in the ranking are Xiaomi, ZTE, Lenovo and Alcatel. Deliveries at them were at the level of 13.2, 12.1, 11.8 and 8.3 million pieces, while market shares ranged from 3.5 to 2.2%.