Strategy Analytics tracks global smartphone shipments went down -10.8% YoY to 327.3 million units in Q3 2021. It ended the recovery phase the industry witnessed over the past four quarters. Supply constrain hit the market badly and many vendors failed to meet the solid demand from the upcoming holiday season. We expect the supply constrain will continue till the first half of 2022.
Samsung maintained the leading position. It shipped 69.3 million smartphones worldwide with 21% market share in Q3 2021. However, the shipment volume fall -14% YoY. Samsung retired Note series and launched fold 3 and flip 3 this quarter. The demand for these new models was very healthy, but the vendor failed to fulfil some orders due to supply shortage.
Apple regained the second place with 14% market share. It managed to ship 46.5 million units of iPhones globally this quarter, up +7% YoY. Supply constrain adversely impacted iPhone 13 series performance this quarter. Instead, iPhone 12 series were still very well received in multiple markets due to aggressive price cut and promotions.
Xiaomi ranked the third position. It shipped 44.0 million units smartphones worldwide in Q3 2021 and captured 13% market share. Supply shortage also hit Xiaomi's performance this quarter. Shipment volume went down -6% YoY.
OPPO (including OnePlus) managed to shipped 36.8 million units smartphones this quarter. Another Chinese brand vivo shipped 33.6 million units. They both are ranked in the top 5 list too.
Among other major vendors, Honor came back strongly thanks to the solid performance in China market. It ranked the eighth position with nearly 5% market share. The other Chinese brand Transsion (including Tecno, itel and Infinix three brands) maintained strong momentum in Africa and India and registered double digit growth rate this quarter. It ranked the sixed position, followed by Realme. Another Chinese brand Lenovo-Motorola also delivered double digit growth rate by shipment volumes this quarter, mainly in America region. It ranked the ninth position.
