When a conversation over coffee about smartphone market share in the US happens, two names will pop up frequently: Samsung and Apple. How about throwing in a third party into the mix? That is exactly what the statistics point to at the moment, with LG of South Korea making its way into the third position behind Apple and Samsung where smartphone market share in the US is concerned. This particular bit of data hails from a report by Strategic Analytics, claiming that LG actually commands 20 percent of the US smartphone market share. Do take such claims from reports with a pinch of salt though. These results hail from Q1 2017, which means the recently introduced flagship LG G6 smartphone is not part of the official figures. Rather, LG managed to climb its way into the third position by virtue of the LG V20 which was released in the fall of 2016, in addition to a slew of budget-friendly smartphones. It is nice to see LG being right up there on the list, even though it still has plenty of work to do in order to break up the duopoly at the top.
What about LG’s global performance in the smartphone industry? The very same report pointed to LG shipping 7.3 million devices in Q1 2017, which is enough to help them cement a spot in the top 5. However, there is more good news filtering through for LG on the whole: the company’s quarterly earnings reported a mere $176,000 in operating losses, which is a vast improvement over what it lost in the first quarter of 2016. This improvement will no doubt boost the morale at the company, showing that they are certainly moving in the right direction.
What everyone is now interested in would be the Q2 2017 figures, and that will only be released a few months from now. After all, Q2 2017 would see the inclusion of the LG G6 in the market share figure, and that would certainly be worth checking out. After all, much marketing has been done to promote the LG G6 globally as the best smartphone effort from LG to date. Alternatively, it would also be a good indicator as to whether first mover advantage works in LG’s case, having released their flagship LG G6 so much earlier compared to Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus.
Where are the other players like Sony, Motorola (which is owned by Lenovo), Huawei (being the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the world), and Google? Fighting it out in the bottom half of the table, no doubt about it. Will Apple and Samsung relinquish their top two spots to the others anytime soon? If anything, it looks like the Galaxy S8’s recent release as well as the upcoming iPhone 8 (which is the 10th anniversary of the iPhone’s debut) will continue to cement their stranglehold at the top of the food chain. Something revolutionary needs to be done by one of their rivals in order to leapfrog them.
