Global shipments of smartphones grew 9.1% on year to 380 million units in the first quarter of 2017, according to Gartner.

The shift in buyer preference is positively affecting China-based vendors such as Huawei, Oppo and Vivo in their strategy to build desirable features at affordable prices. Their combined market share in the first quarter of 2017 accounted for 24% globally, up 7 pp on year, Gartner said.

Samsung Electronics' smartphone sales declined 3.1% on year to 78.671 million in the first quarter of 2017. The vendor also saw its market share decline to 20.7% in the quarter, down from 23.3% of a year earlier.

Sales of iPhones were flat at 51.992 million units in the first quarter, which led to a drop in Apple's market share to 13.7% from 14.8%.

Huawei edged closer to Apple with smartphone sales amounting to 34.181 million units in the first quarter, an increase of 18.43% from a year earlier. Its market share also climbed to 9% in the first quarter compared to 8.3% a year earlier.

Oppo saw its shipments surge 94.6% on year to 30.922 million units in the first quarter, accounting for an 8.1% share. Meanwhile, Vivo sold almost 26 million smartphones and achieved a market share of 6.8%, which helped it achieve growth of 84.6% in shipment volume in the first quarter.