Telecom
Samsung, iPhone & Huawei lead Worldwide Smartphone Shipment Market
International Data Corporation (IDC’s) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker shows that smartphone vendors shipped a total of 334.3 million units during the first quarter of 2018 (1Q18), resulting in a 2.9% decline when compared to the 344.4 million units shipped in the first quarter of 2017.
The China market was the biggest driver of this decline with shipment volumes dipping below 100 million in the quarter, which hasn’t happened since the third quarter of 2013.
Melissa Chau, associate research director with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers, said “Globally, as well as in China, a key bellwether, smartphone consumers are trading up to more premium devices, but there are no longer as many new smartphone converts, resulting in shipments dropping,”
“When we look at it from a dollar value perspective, the smartphone market is still climbing and will continue to grow over the years to come as consumers are increasingly reliant on these devices for the bulk of their computing needs.”
Anthony Scarsella, research manager with IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker said, “Despite new flagships from the likes of Samsung and Huawei, along with the first full quarter of iPhone X shipments, consumers looked unwilling to shell out big money for the latest and greatest devices on the market,”
“The abundance of ultra-high-end flagships with big price tags released over the past 12-18 months has most likely halted the upgrade cycle in the near term.
“It now looks as if consumers are not willing to shell out this kind of money for a new device that brings minimal upgrades over their current device.
“Looking forward, more affordable premium devices might be the solution the market needs in the second half of the year to drive shipments back in a positive direction.”
Smartphone Company Highlights shows that Samsung remained the leader in the worldwide smartphone market grabbing 23.4% share despite experiencing a 2.4% decline from Q1 2017.
The new S9 and S9+ led the way as the new flagships launched a quarter early for the Korean giant compared to last year’s S8/S8+.
Although the new flagships shipped late in the quarter, brisk initial sales of the new devices kept the overall yearly decline at a minimum as the bulk of the positive impact is expected to arrive in Q2 2018.
Despite the late launch, the high-priced devices should significantly boost average selling prices (ASPs) in the quarter for Samsung.
Outside of the new flagships, the A series and J series continued to drive most of the key volume in both developed and emerging markets.
Apple’s first quarter saw the iPhone maker move 52.2 million iPhones representing a modest 2.8% year-over-year increase from the 50.8 million units shipped last year.
Despite rumors of an underperforming iPhone X in the quarter, Apple stated that the iPhone X was the most popular model each week in the March quarter.
The success of the more expensive iPhone X combined with healthy sales of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus helped grow ASPs 11.1% to $728, up from $655 last year.
Rumors of three new bezel-less iPhones arriving this September are expected to bring new features such as a larger AMOLED display model, a more affordable mid-tier model, and increased performance and imaging capabilities across the board.
Huawei climbed to a new market share high of 11.8% even as it remained in third overall.
Huawei has toed the line between maintaining a strong domestic position while slowly upscaling its brand image in international markets with dividends paying off as it beat the average global growth rate, reaching 13.8% year over year.
While it’s high-end smartphones are popular in China, the bulk of its shipments are of the more affordable class of smartphones, and it also introduced a few new models in the low-end and mid-range segments.
Outside of China, Huawei is growing and gaining market share across the Western Europe region, an otherwise declining market, and is particularly strong in Spain, Germany, and Italy.
In these markets, the Lite versions continue to be the company’s bestselling devices, but the P10 and the Mate 10 range are in a much better position compared to predecessors P9 and Mate 9.
The share of the midrange and ultra-high-end devices improved substantially year over year.
Huawei is in a strong position to compete at the higher end of the smartphone arena with the opportunity to grow its share in Europe.
Huawei also reintroduced its Honor brand in a couple of markets in Southeast Asia, where the high-end P series and Mate series are less popular.
Xiaomi’s strong performance has no doubt been due to its strong growth outside of China with 1Q18 the first quarter that less than half of its shipments were domestic, a transition that very few Chinese companies have reached.
Xiaomi continues its retail expansion in India and Southeast Asia; however online channels remain the key contributor in India, its second largest market.
Its low-end Redmi 5A made up almost two-fifths of its volume in India.
In its commitment to the “Make in India” campaign, Xiaomi also recently announced PCB assembly in India, becoming the second vendor after Samsung to do so.
OPPO held the fifth position with its year-over-year decline of 7.5% more a result of the China slowdown than of its performance overseas, as both share and shipment volumes abroad increased in the first quarter.
OPPO has also pruned some of its retail partnerships to focus on those with higher contribution to sales.
To counter Xiaomi’s strong growth in the India market, OPPO has also shifted some focus to online channels where it had been solely focused on offline channels in the past.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said that Nigeria’s internet usage reached a record 1.24 million terabytes in November 2025.
According to the latest data from the NCC, the figure rose modestly from 1.235 million terabytes in October, reflecting steady growth in digital activity across the country.
Broadband penetration in Nigeria crossed the halfway mark in November 2025, reaching 50.58 per cent, up from 45.61 per cent in January, the telecoms regulator reported.
The figure, however, falls short of the 70 per cent coverage target outlined in the National Broadband Plan 2020–2025, which expires this month.
The country had roughly 109 million broadband subscriptions by November. Growth has been uneven, hindered by infrastructure and regulatory constraints, including frequent fibre-optic vandalism that triggers 30 to 43 network cuts daily, high right-of-way fees, and declining subscriber numbers earlier in the year.
Expansion of mobile networks, particularly 3G and 4G services, alongside limited 5G rollouts in urban centres, affordable smartphones, and competitive data plans, has driven uptake.
Investments in the National Communications Backbone and private-sector initiatives have also improved access, especially in underserved areas.
While Nigeria is gradually improving digital inclusion, achieving the original broadband plan remains challenging due to high infrastructure costs, coverage limitations, and deployment hurdles.
The NCC maintains that continued investment in mobile networks and broadband infrastructure will sustain gradual growth in the sector.
Commenting on the development, some Nigerian analysts attributed the surge to the broader mobile and broadband adoption and the growing appetite for streaming, online learning and other digital services.
According to the analysts, the figures suggest that internet connectivity is no longer a luxury but a necessity for both business and leisure, underscoring the slow but steady expansion of Nigeria’s digital economy.
Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) has named the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) among the top three Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government with the Best Ranking in Website Performance for 2025.
L-R: Head Special Projects, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Salamatu Andu; Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), Engr. Abaraham Oshadame; Director General Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR), Head Customer Support Service, Galaxy Backbone, Rosemary Ehize; Secretary to the ES. Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, Tahir Aminu at the BPSR award ceremony for top four MDAs in BPSR Website Performance and Ranking 2025 at the BPSR office on Tuesday, 23rd December, 2025.
This is coming barely three weeks after the telecom regulator was recognized as one of the top five best-performing Federal Government agencies for 2025 by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) – a testament to the Commission’s consistency in investment in technology for ensuring efficient service delivery.
In the BPSR 2024/2025 scorecard ranking of agencies’ websites, the NCC came second in the ranking, trailing behind Galaxy Backbone Limited, which came first while the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) clinched the third position, from a pool of 235 MDAs, whose website were evaluated.
BPSR deployed 14 evaluation criteria in include MDA’s website compliance with .gov.ng domain name, appearance and aesthetics (look and feel) of the website, content, relevance to MDAs mandate/government policy and the website’ structure.
Others include website’s responsiveness (device compatibility), security, load time, usability/ease of navigation, availability/uptime, functionality, interactivity, accessibility and capacity building.
The recognition was announced at the official release of Federal Government 2024/2025 Scorecard Ranking for MDAs’ Website held at the Federal Ministry of Finance Auditorium in Abuja on Monday (December 22, 2025) while the award presentation took place at BPSR’s Office on Tuesday (December 23, 2025).
The award, which is an important index metric of the National e-Government Masterplan for determining the Nigeria e-Government Status, was received by the Commission in recognition of its commitment to maintaining a world-class website that enhances service delivery to the citizens.
Receiving the award on behalf of the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Dr. Aminu Maida, the NCC’s Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, Abraham Oshadami, appreciated the BPSR for the recognition, describing the award as “another encouragement for the Commission to be a better public service institution leveraging digital platforms such as our web presence to enhance public service delivery to our various stakeholders, thereby implementing the Federal Government’s Ease of Doing Business policy direction.”
While presenting the award to the NCC, alongside other two agencies, BPSR’s Director-General, Mr. Dasuki Arabi, commended the top three for their proactive decisions in maintaining world-class websites, which are compliant with the Federal Government’s policy direction in effective and efficient service delivery to the citizens.
According to the DG, the 2024/2025 MDA’s websites’ ranking represents a collective effort of federal public institutions in Nigeria to be transparent, accountable and open in governance, as well as a confirmation to align with global best practices in service delivery to the citizens.
Developed about six years ago, Arabi said as a result of the annual ranking, more public institutions have indicated readiness to embrace reforms, and align with the policy direction of the current administration’s Renewed Hope agenda on improve governance for effective service delivery, as introduced by His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“The ideals of harnessing and deploying technological tools for service delivery has become imperative following the COVID pandemic, and distortions of socio-economic system of nations, culminating in the evolution of competitiveness, cost effectiveness, and agile governance.
“As engine room of governance, it behoves on us in the public service to perform our statutory duties and we must put in place technological innovations and standardized websites to operate services as well as deliver service needs to citizens,” he said.
The Scorecard exercise, he said, is part of the BPSR reform broader function of conducting research on reform implementation efforts and presenting ‘best practice’ models to the entire Public Service, and to among others, improve access to government information, facilitate seamless financial transaction, eliminate corruption and cyber theft, as well as facilitate access to government services.
Speaking on the rigorous nature of the exercise that produced the top three winners, the DG said “in the past few weeks members of the Scorecard Jury drawn from inter-Ministerial Agencies, had worked tirelessly to mill websites of selected MDAs through a rigorous process of enduring criteria for the ranking and the outcome had also passed through a quality assurance mechanism to validate the outcome.”
Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, has dismissed reports that bank accounts not linked to a Tax Identification Number (TIN) will be frozen or automatically debited from January 1, 2026.
Taiwo Oyedele
Oyedele described the claims as false and misleading, warning Nigerians against panic over misinformation surrounding recent tax and financial reforms.
In a post on his X handle Tuesday morning, he wrote: “Don’t let anyone manipulate you. Your bank account is safe. Misinformation makes you panic and fear a reform that is designed to help you.
“When they tell you that your account will be frozen or automatically debited from January 2026, ask them for the evidence in the new law. Be wise.”
He stressed that no provision in the new tax laws authorises the freezing of bank accounts, adding that the rumours are part of widespread misrepresentation of the reforms.
The committee chairman reiterated that the reforms are intended to simplify Nigeria’s tax system and ease the burden on ordinary citizens, not to impose punitive measures on bank customers.
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