How do next year's flagships compare? We take a look at the rumours surrounding Apple's iPhone 8 and the Galaxy S8
It's that time of year again, Samsung just launched its new flagship, the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus. Meanwhile, Apple won't launch a new iPhone until September, but this year is a special year; it's the iPhone’s 10th birthday and Apple is believed to be introducing a TON of new features, specs and a brand new design language.
Samsung is once again the biggest phone maker on the planet, beating Apple and Huawei. TrendForce released a report this week that shows all the movers and shakers in the mobile space for Q1 2017.
Samsung is the biggest player, followed by Apple and then Huawei, Oppo and BBK/vivo. LG managed to sneak into the top six, but only just. BlackBerry, HTC, Sony, OnePlus and the rest are once again left to pick up the crumbs.
What’s most surprising about Samsung’s return to the top of the pile, however, is that it managed to do it inside Q1 without a new flagship or the Galaxy Note 7, which certainly bodes well for later on in 2017 with the Galaxy S8 and Samsung Galaxy Note 8.
TrendForce is concerned about Samsung’s potential for later on in the year, however, given just how much hype and attention Apple’s iPhone 8 is getting at the moment. Most analyst firms agree that 2017 will be a MASSIVE year for iPhone, regardless of how good the competitions’ offerings are.
"Major brands such as Samsung, LG and Huawei have begun to ship their flagship devices for the year, but the market demand going into the second quarter is expected to remain relatively weak as consumers are holding off their purchases in anticipation of the 10th anniversary iPhone devices that will arrive in the third quarter. Smartphone sales will be fairly lackluster until the second half of this year. TrendForce estimates that the global smartphone production volume for this second quarter will register a modest single-digit growth versus the preceding three-month period."
Although there's a ways off for the iPhone launch, the handsets (three are rumoured) have been talked about pretty extensively already, so there's a lot of info out there. Plenty of it is from reliable and reputable sources as well, and a lot of it corroborates, overlaps, or lines up in such a way that we feel reasonably confident in being able to predict roughly how these devices will compare. So that's where this article comes in, a somewhat tentative and speculative look at all the rumoured info.
