Dubai: Demand for low-cost 3G and 4G smartphones continues to drive growth in the Middle East and North Africa markets, an industry expert told Gulf News.

“Smartphone sales in emerging countries grew much faster than the basic (feature) phones, especially in Africa. Sales in some of the mature markets were almost flat,” said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner.

The overall market grew only 6.38 per cent year on year to 24.19 million units in the second quarter compared to 22.74 million units during the same period last year.

Out of this, smartphones surged 46 per cent year on year to 14.94 million units.

Emerging Asia/Pacific (excluding China), Eastern Europe and Middle East and Africa were the fastest-growing regions worldwide during the quarter, driven by good performance from the Chinese and local vendors.

By contrast, smartphone sales in China fell for the first time year over year, recording a four per cent decline.

“China has reached saturation — its phone market is essentially driven by replacement, with fewer first-time buyers. Beyond the lower-end phone segment, the appeal of premium smartphones will be a key for vendors to attract upgrades and to maintain or grow their market share in China,” Gupta said.

However, he said that China is the biggest country for smartphone sales, representing 30 per cent of total sales of smartphones in the second quarter of 2015.

Globally, the total handset sales to end users totalled 445.76 million units, an increase of a mere 0.35 per cent over the same period in 2014.

Worldwide sales of smartphones to end users totalled 330 million units, an increase of 13.5 per cent over the same period in 2014.

Gupta said that Samsung is in a tricky position by trying to differentiate its products and “facing pressure from iPhone” in the premium segment, and from other Chinese and local vendors in the mid- to low-end segments.

Chinese vendors are offering “more feature-rich phones” for $120 with 4G connections rather than Samsung with 3G connectivity.

Many of the Chinese brands have launched high-end smartphones which can rival the top brands at less than half the price in the UAE.

Despite the launch of new S6 models, he said that Samsung’s premium phones continued to be challenged by Apple’s large-screen iPhones. Consumers are also finding “more value” from the Chinese and local brands. Many of the Chinese and local brands have improved their phone quality and are almost on par with global brands in the emerging markets.

Samsung will “face trouble in the short term” as the company does not have any more flagship launches this year.

“We don’t have great updates coming in from BlackBerry. Even if BlackBerry is entering the Android space, that segment is already very competitive and everyone is trying to differentiate their products,” he said.

Blackberry is expected to add its security and productivity features to its Android device [dual-edge Venice smartphone], which is expected in November.

The market has matured a lot, he said and added that the Android L update, the next mobile OS from Google, has enterprise-level security features added into it and Samsung has added its own Knox security features into their devices.

“What level of security features Blackberry is going to add is to be seen? The Android space is very competitive from players like Samsung, HTC and other Chinese brands,” he said.

Regarding Windows OS, he said that Microsoft is coming out with a unique proposition, scalable across multiple consumer devices. It will make an interesting case, especially from the enterprise segment. As the consumer segment is concerned, it will continue to face challenges due to the non-availability of apps.

“In light of Microsoft’s recent cuts in its mobile hardware business, we’ll await signs of its long-term commitment in the smartphone market,” he said.

He said the low barrier to entry into the Android segment will continue to encourage an array of new players, adding to further disruptions coming from Chinese manufacturing and innovative internet players with new business models that are not reliant on hardware margins.

Gartner expects smartphone sales to continue its growth in the third quarter.