Industry Analysts: Apple Only Smartphone Maker with Growth in March-Quarter

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02 MAY 2022 - Financial analysts looking past the rough quarter ahead may be taking the very recent past into account. Remember how iPhone set a March-quarter record despite supply constraints? It seems to have done even better than that. 

After Apple’s quarterly earnings report last week, a piece from MacRumors says the industry analysts Canalys, IDC, and Strategy Analytics all published their estimates on smartphone shipments for the March quarter. “They all differ in exact numbers and estimates,” according to the piece, “but across all three reports, Apple was the only maker to have experienced growth in the last quarter.” Looking at the individual firms:

• Strategy Analytics put Apple in second-place globally, with growth that was almost not like growth. iPhone grew 0.6% in the firm’s estimation, though - again - from first place Samsung, down 2.7%, to fourth place vivo, down a vertigo-inducing 31.2% - Apple was the only one to see any growth at all

• IDC had iPhone growing more and Samsung losing less. iPhone was up 2.2% in that firm’s estimation, while Samsung was only down 1.2%. vivo was also IDC’s biggest loser, with a 27.2% drop

• Looking better for iPhone and worse for Sammy were numbers from Canalys. That firm had first place Samsung’s smartphone shipments dropping 8% while iPhone grew 4%. Once again, vivo was the biggest loser, with a year-on-year drop of 30%.