Global smartphone 📱 sales return to growth 📈, led by Samsung

Gartner predicted last month that global smartphone sales would return to growth next year, and its latest numbers show that this was actually achieved sooner than expected, in Q3 this year.

Global sales of smartphones to end users totalled 383 million units in the third quarter of 2017, a 3 percent increase over the same period in 2016, according to Gartner, Inc. All of the top five smartphone vendors achieved double-digit growth apart from Apple ...

"Renewed pushes of the newly designed Galaxy S8, S8+ and Note 8 smartphones have brought back growing demand for Samsung smartphones, which helped it compete against Chinese manufacturers and deliver a solid performance in the quarter," said Mr. Gupta.

Apple's growth in Q3 was constrained by those awaiting the launch of the iPhone X in Q4, limiting year-on-year sales growth to 5.7%.

India continues to be the biggest and highest-growth market for Xiaomi outside China, but growing sales from Latin America and Russia are also boosting its sales.