Vivo has once again proven its prowess as a market leader by retaining the top five spot as a premium global smartphone brand, a title it has held for five consecutive quarters.
The figures came from the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, which supplies detailed information on the state of Mobile Phone markets worldwide.
According to the data from the IDC, a total of 1.47 billion smartphones were sold in 2016, the highest number of shipments on record and up by 2.3% from 2015.
The last quarter of 2016 in particular saw a 6.9% year-on-year growth for smartphone shipments with 428.5 million units shipped worldwide compared to only 400.7 million in 2015.
Vivo shipped a total of 24.7 million smartphones during the holiday quarter, more than double from the same time frame last in 2015. For the full year, the company saw a 103% increase in units sold which translates to 77.3 million smartphones in 2016.
“The top three Chinese vendors are persistently applying pressure on Samsung within China, thanks to a vast portfolio of affordable, well-built devices—not just low-end but high-end devices, which have proven viable options for consumers looking to save money and upgrade without sacrificing quality,” – Anthony Scarsella, research manager with IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker
Vivo is known for its competitive and high-quality offerings in the premium segment as well as first in the market innovations. The Vivo X1 for example, is the first smartphone to feature a Digital-to-Analog Converter Hi-Fi chip, and the Vivo X3 in 2013 is the first to have a 2K display.
The brand’s current flagship, the V5 Plus, is the first smartphone to be equipped with a 20MP dual front-facing camera. Together with the other members of the lineup, the Vivo V5 and V5 Lite, these devices are meant to capture the hearts of the selfie-centric market in the Philippines.
Emman has been writing technical and feature articles since 2010. Prior to this, he became one of the instructors at Asia Pacific College in 2008, and eventually landed a job as Business Analyst and Technical Writer at Integrated Open Source Solutions for almost 3 years.