Samsung Ships 30.6 Million Smartphones to Africa, Others as Profit Sours 44% in Q1 2021

The South Korean tech giant shipped 30.6 million smartphones in the EMEA market in the January-March period for a 32.8 percent market share, according to the latest report from industry researcher International Data Corp. (IDC).

The figures were up from a year earlier when the company shipped 22.7 million smartphones for a 29.5 percent market share.

Samsung Electronics on Wednesday said first-quarter profit likely rose 44%, with analysts attributing the surge to brisk sales of smartphones and TVs, albeit tempered by a likely fall in chip earnings after a storm halted U.S. output. Emer McCarthy reports.

“Samsung had a very strong quarter and captured nearly two-fifths of the European smartphone market — its largest quarterly share for six years,” IDC said.

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Xiaomi moved up two spots to take the runner-up position after its smartphone shipments nearly doubled to 14.4 million units in the first quarter for a 15.4 percent market share.

Its Chinese rival, Shenzhen Transsion Holdings, came in third with a 15 percent market share by shipping 14 million smartphones in the first three months of 2021, reports Yonhap news agency.

Apple fell from the second spot to fourth place with a market share of 14.3 percent after shipping 13.3 million iPhones in the first quarter.

The overall EMEA smartphone market expanded to a first-quarter record of 93.06 million units, up 20.9 percent from a year earlier, with its market value surging 29 percent on-year to US$31.67 billion.

“With such a strong showing to the opening quarter of the year, however, IDC is expecting a reversal this year of the slow year-on-year decline in smartphone sales that we have seen in Europe since 2015,” IDC said.