The Game of Phones (apologies to George R.R. Martin) is getting to be an increasingly tough one to play for handset manufacturers. Just consider, for example, new data from Counterpoint Research that shows Samsung (no surprise) remains the top smartphone maker in the world as ranked by global smartphone shipments. But even though Samsung is at the top of the list, its shipments actually continue to decline.
Samsung boasted a 19 percent global smartphone market share in the third quarter, according to Counterpoint Research. The South Korea-based tech giant shipped 72.2 million units between July and September, which was down 13% year-over-year compared to the 83.3 million units Samsung shipped during the same period in 2017. Back then, the company had a 21% market share globally.