Apple continues to dominate premium smartphone market, OnePlus enters top 5: Report

Despite losing seven percent market share, Apple has managed to cling on to its lead in the worldwide premium smartphone market in 2018.A newly published survey also reveals that OnePlus (courtesy of its OnePlus 6T sales), for the first time in its five years of existence, has managed to feature among the top five premium smartphone makers list. The Chinese phone maker also recorded its highest ever shipments in a single quarter (Q4 2018) in India.[caption id="attachment_5317851" align="alignnone" width="1024"]

A customer looks at Apple's new iPhone XS after it went on sale at the Apple Store. Image: Reuters[/caption]Samsung, which currently sits at the second spot, also lost one percent of its market, while Huawei and Oppo made significant gains.According to the latest 'Market Monitor' report by Counterpoint Research, Apple accounted for 51 percent of all worldwide premium smartphone shipments, down from 58 percent in 2017. Despite the drop, Apple still has a significant lead over the second spot holder Samsung which accounts for 22 percent of the shipments, followed by Huawei with 10 percent, Oppo with 6 percent, and OnePlus with 2 percent.Commenting on the growing competition in the premium smartphone segment Counterpoint Research in a blog post stated, “An indication of the increasing competition in the segment is highlighted by the fact that close to 40 OEMs now compete in the premium segment globally. Of these, the top five players account for almost 90 percent of shipments. The premium segment contributed to one-fourth (22 percent) of the global smartphone shipments in 2018.”