Apple may have had a decline in iPhone shipments for the first time since launching the first model in 2007. But Apple wasn’t the only company to see a slump in smartphone sales: According to a new report from IDC, the smartphone market only grew by 0.2 percent in the first quarter of 2016, with total shipments of 334.9 million, up from 334.3 million during the same period in 2015.
That’s the smallest amount of year-to-year growth since IDC started tracking smartphone sales, and the research firm figures it’s because of market saturation in developed countries (most people who want a smartphone already have one, and may not feel the need to upgrade to a new model frequently).
But things are still rapidly changing in China — and that’s led to a big shakeup in the top 5 list of smartphone makers (as measured by device shipments).
Samsung, Apple, and Huawei continue to take first, second, and third places, respectively. But Lenovo and Xiaomi have fallen off IDC’s top 5 list.
They’re replaced by Oppo and Vivo… companies that have become big names rather quickly in China (and to folks who read sites like Liliputing, which cover Chinese phones from companies  Vivo and Oppo from time to time), but which don’t yet sell devices globally. Vivo is primarily focused on China for now, while Oppo offers phones in its home country and also in other Asian markets and a few other regions. Neither company is targeting the US yet.
But with shipments of 18.5 million phones in the first quarter of the year, IDC puts Oppo in fourth places with a 5.5 percent market share, while Vivo’s 14.3 million units puts the company in 5th place. Both companies more than doubled their shipments from the same period a year earlier.