Brazil sees rise in smartphone sales
Sales of smartphones in Brazil have increased in the first three months of 2017 following a slowdown period, according to numbers from research firm Gartner.
Smartphone shipments saw a boost of 5 percent during the period when compared to the first quarter of 2016, with 11 million units sold, according to the research firm's data, published by Brazilian newspaper Valor.
According to Gartner, the push came from consumers who took longer to buy new devices due to the economic slowdown then decided to upgrade at the start of the year - when most retailers typically reduce prices.
However, this could be a temporary improvement, according to the company, who predicts that smartphone sales will see growth of 2 percent for the whole year - prior to the announcement of Q1 numbers, growth of 3 to 5 percent had been predicted.
In terms of individual performance of the main players, Samsung was the leader, with market share of 37 percent and 4,1 million units shipped in the first quarter of 2017.
Lenovo came second on the Gartner ranking, with growth in sales of 24 percent with 2,56 million smartphones sold. LG, ranked third, grew 17 percent with 1,15 million units sold. Apple came fourth in terms of sales for Q1 2017, with 724,000 units sold and a market share of 7 percent.
Chinese manufacturer ZTE (39,000 units sold), Sony (23,000 units), Microsoft (6,000 units) and BlackBerry (4,000 units) all suffered with a double-digit sales drop in the quarter. Together, the firms hold a market share of less than one percent in the Brazilian market.
According to the Gartner research, Android is by far the main operating system for mobile phones in Brazil, running in 86,1 percent of phones, while Apple's iOS runs on 13,7 of smartphones in the country.