Apple received good news from Telia Denmark, which announced that the U.S. smartphone maker's devices remained among the most popular with its customers during May.
The operator revealed that Apple devices accounted for five of its top-10 best-selling smartphones in May, with the vendor's iPhone 6s retaining its position at the head of the list for the eighth month in a row. Samsung's flagship Galaxy S7 edge device was the second most popular device during May, and Huawei's Y360 ranked in third place.
Apple's iPhone SE ranked in fifth place in the top-10 listing, the iPhone 6s Plus took sixth place, and the iPhone 6 came in seventh. The vendor's domination of the top 10 was rounded out by the iPhone 5s, which ranked in ninth place.
While Apple and Samsung continued to lead the way in terms of first and second places, Telia Denmark noted that Huawei made ground during May. Its Y360 moved up one place during the month and the vendor's P9 smartphone entered Telia Denmark's top 10 for the first time, being its fourth most popular device during the month.
Samsung's Galaxy S7 occupied eighth place, and the top 10 was rounded out by Sony's Xperia Z5 Compact.
Jesper Lylloff, product manager at Telia Denmark, said Sony could stage a comeback in the coming months as it plans to launch the Xperia X and XA smartphones. Huawei could also make ground with a variant of its P9 model, he noted.
Telia Denmark's figures offer some relief to Apple, which recently made waves by reporting its first annual decline in iPhone shipments during its fiscal second quarter of 2016, which covers the three months to Mar. 26. Shipments fell 16 per cent year-on-year to 51.1 million units.
Goldman Sachs analyst Simona Jankowski last week stated that Apple's sales could be boosted by the launch of the iPhone 7, explaining that a recent consumer survey in the U.S. pointed to significant pent-up demand for the forthcoming smartphone, MarketWatch reported.
However, growth opportunities for all smartphone vendors appear to be shrinking. IDC last week cut its forecasts for smartphone shipments growth in 2016 by 2.6 percentage points due to an ongoing slowdown in shipments in mature markets and China.
The research company now expects total smartphone shipments to grow 3.1 per cent in 2016, to 1.48 billion units.
For more:
- see this Telia Denmark release (in Danish)
- read this MarketWatch report
- view Apple's earnings report (PDF)
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