Apple, Samsung rule worldwide smartphone market

Nokia losing steam, looks to the new Lumia to regain market share

Apple and Samsung continued to dominate the smartphone market worldwide by controlling a market share of 46.5% in the third quarter of 2012, said a Gartner report.

Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users reached almost 428 million units in the third quarter of 2012, a 3.1% decline from the third quarter of 2011. But smartphones continued to fuel sales of mobile phones worldwide with sales rising to 169.2 million units in the third quarter of 2012. These sales accounted for 39.6% of total mobile phone sales.

Nokia continued to see a fall in the smartphone category. Nokia slipped from No. 3 in the second quarter of 2012 to No. 7 in smartphone sales in the third quarter of 2012. Nokia's mobile phone sales declined 21.9% in the third quarter of 2012, but overall sales at 82.3 million were better than Gartner’s early estimate, largely driven by increased sales of the Asha full touch range.

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. The arrival of the new Lumia devices on Windows 8 should help to halt the decline in share in the fourth quarter of 2012, although it won’t be until 2013 to see a significant improvement in Nokia’s position, said Gartner.

Both vendors, Apple and Samsung, together controlled 46.5% of smartphone market leaving a handful of vendors fighting over a distant third spot. Both HTC and RIM have seen their sales declining in past few quarters, and the challenges might prevent them from holding on to their current rankings in coming quarters,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. RIM moved to the No. 3 spot with HTC not far behind, at No. 4.

Samsung’s mobile phones sales continued to accelerate, totaling almost 98 million units in the third quarter of 2012, up 18.6% year-on-year. Samsung saw 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% of the global smartphone market in the third quarter of 2012.

Apple’s sales to end users totaled 23.6 million units in the third quarter of 2012, up 36.2% year-on-year. “We saw inventory built up into the channel as Apple prepared for the coming holiday season, global expansions and the launch into China in the fourth quarter of 2012,” said Gupta. With iPhone 5 launching in more territories in the fourth quarter of 2012, including China, and the upcoming holiday season Gartner analysts expect Apple will have its traditionally strongest quarter.
 
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. There was also channel destocking in preparation of new device launches for RIM, which resulted into 8.9 million sales to end users in the third quarter of 2012. With the launch of iPhone 5, Gartner analysts expect iOS share will grow strongly in the fourth quarter of 2012 because users held on to their replacements in many markets ahead of the iPhone 5 wider roll out. Windows Phone’s share weakened year-on-year as the Windows Phone 8 launch dampened demand of Windows Phone 7 device