The best selling Android smartphone in the first quarter of 2017 didn’t come from the usual suspects like Samsung, LG, Huawei, or Xiaomi. Instead, a new report claims the OPPO R9s was the most popular Android phone during the quarter, as it shipped 8.9 million units worldwide.
The report, from the research firm Strategy Analytics, stated that Apple’s iPhone 7 was the best selling overall smartphone during the last quarter, with 21.5 million units shipped, followed by the iPhone 7 Plus with 17.4 million units. The OPPO R9s was in third place, followed by two mid-range Samsung phones from 2016; the Galaxy J3 with 6.1 million units and Galaxy J5 with 5 million units.
Strategy Analytics notes that OPPO is very popular in China and is also selling more smartphones in India, which may have helped boost sales of the mid-range OPPO R9s. High sales of the 2016 editions of the Galaxy J3 and J5 phones may have also helped Samsung take some of the sting out of the Galaxy Note 7 recall in the fall of 2016.
Overall, the firm claims that 353.3 million smartphone units shipped worldwide during the first quarter of 2017, up 6.1 percent from the 333.1 million units that shipped from the same time period a year ago. It’s likely that the smartphone shipment stats could change in Samsung’s favor for the current quarter, thanks to the release of the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus.