Smartphone sales accounted for 39.6 percent of total mobile phone sales as smartphone sales increased 46.9 percent from the third quarter of 2011, reveals a Gartner report. Samsung saw a strong demand for Galaxy smartphones across different price points, and it further widened the gap with Apple in the smartphone market, selling 55 million smartphones in the third quarter of 2012. It commanded 32.5 percent of the global smartphone market in the third quarter of 2012.
Smartphones continued to fuel sales of mobile phones worldwide with sales rising to 169.2 million units in the third quarter of 2012. The market was dominated by Apple and Samsung as both together controlled 46.5 percent of smartphone market leaving a handful of vendors fighting over a distant third spot.
Samsung's mobile phones sales continued to accelerate, totaling almost 98 million units in the third quarter of 2012 (see Table 1), up 18.6 percent year-on-year. Apple's sales to end users totaled 23.6 million units in the third quarter of 2012, up 36.2 percent year-on-year while Nokia's mobile phone sales declined 21.9 percent in the third quarter of 2012. Nokia had a particularly bad quarter with smartphone sales, and it tumbled to the No. 7 worldwide position with 7.2 million smartphones sold in the third quarter.
Worldwide Mobile Device Sales to End Users by Vendor in 3Q12 (Thousands of Units)
Company | 3Q12 Units | 3Q12 Market Share (%) | 3Q11 Units | 3Q11 Market Share (%) |
Samsung | 97,956.8 | 22.9 | 82,612.2 | 18.7 |
Nokia | 82,300.6 | 19.2 | 105,353.5 | 23.9 |
Apple | 23,550.3 | 5.5 | 17,295.3 | 3.9 |
ZTE | 16,654.2 | 3.9 | 14,107.8 | 3.2 |
LG Electronics | 13,968.8 | 3.3 | 21,014.6 | 4.8 |
Huawei Device | 11,918.9 | 2.8 | 10,668.2 | 2.4 |
TCL Communication | 9,326.7 | 2.2 | 9,004.7 | 2.0 |
Research in Motion | 8,946.8 | 2.1 | 12,701.1 | 2.9 |
Motorola | 8,562.7 | 2.0 | 11,182.7 | 2.5 |
HTC | 8,428.6 | 2.0 | 12,099.9 | 2.7 |
Others | 146,115.1 | 34.2 | 145,462.2 | 32.9 |
Total | 427,729.5 | 100.0 | 441,502.2 | 100.0 |
Source: Gartner (November 2012)
According to the Gartner report, worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users reached almost 428 million units in the third quarter of 2012, which is a 3.1 percent decline from the third quarter of 2011. However, according to Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner, there were positive signs for the industry during the third quarter. "After two consecutive quarter of decline in mobile phone sales, demand has improved in both mature and emerging markets as sales increased sequentially, Gupta said.
In the smartphone market, Android continued to increase its market share, up 19.9 percentage points in the third quarter of 2012. Although RIM lost market share, it climbed to the No. 3 position as Symbian is nearing the end of its lifecycle.
