Sales of Apple Inc.’s iPhone dropped for the first time in the fourth quarter last year, losing market share in an arena that is increasingly being taken over by phone makers in developing countries.
In the final quarter of 2015, iPhone sales dropped 4.4%, cutting Apple’sAAPL, +0.50% market share to 17.7% from 20.4% in the same quarter of 2014, according to technology research company Gartner.
Overall, global smartphone sales for all manufacturers grew 9.7% quarter-on-quarter, the slowest rate of growth since 2008, Gartner found.
