Smartphone shipments fell 6.3% in Europe Q1

While Smartphone shipments fell 6.3 percent year on year, the biggest ever drop in a single quarter, South Korean tech giant Samsung shipped over 15 million smartphones to lead the European market in the first quarter of 2018.

According to a new report by research firm, Canalys Samsung remained on top, shipping over 15 million smartphones, but slipped 15 percent compared with last year as Huawei and Xiaomi put pressure on its low-end and mid-range models.

But the high price of the Galaxy S9, as well as its earlier launch in the calendar year than the Galaxy S8, prompted a drastic rise in its ASP over the previous year, and helped Samsung boost its shipment value by over 20 percent, it added.

"This is a new era for smartphones in Europe," said Ben Stanton, Analyst at Canalys.

Stanton said: "The few remaining growth markets are not enough to offset the saturated ones. We are moving from a growth era to a cyclical era. This presents a brand-new challenge to the incumbents, and we expect several smaller brands to leave the market in the coming years."

Meanwhile, Apple shipped over 10 million units, but this still represented a 5.4 percent decline.

As a percentage of models shipped, the iPhone X declined slightly from Q4 to around 25 percent, but it remained comfortably the best-shipping smartphone in the region.

Apple's larger portfolio strategy will become more important as the year progresses, with over 25 percent of its Q1 shipments the iPhone SE, 6 and 6S - models that are over two years old. This wider spread of shipments did, however, offset the value growth driven by the pricier iPhone X, a report said.

The report pointed out that Huawei grew 38.6 percent and shipping 7.4 million units.

It shipped over 1 million of its new P Smart in its first full quarter. But the delay to its flagship P20, versus last year's P10, meant that very few of its Q1 shipments were premium models.

Despite its large volume growth, it only managed to boost its shipment value by 1.7 percent over the previous year. But it will be confident of a rise in ASP as the P20 truly comes into play in Q2, the report added.

Brands like Samsung, Apple and Huawei have grown their collective share of Europe from 61.0 percent in Q1 2014 to 71.4 percent in Q1 2018.

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Smaller brands, such as Alcatel, Sony, and LG, suffered substantial declines this quarter.