Smartphones Sales Soar To 427 Million, Apple Takes Pole Position

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 16 (Bernama) -- Smartphone sales worldwide soared to 472 million units last year with Apple smartphones taking the pole position, thanks to the craze for such device globally. The total smartphone sales last year accounted for 31 per cent of all mobile devices sales, up 58 per cent from 2010, according to information technology research and advisory company, Gartner Inc. In a statement Thursday, Gartner said worldwide smartphone sales soared to 149 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011, a 47.3 per cent increase from the fourth quarter of 2010. It said the smartphone volume during the quarter rose due to record sales of Apple iPhones. "As a result, Apple became the third-largest mobile phone vendor in the world, overtaking LG. "As the top smartphone vendor, Apple holds 23.8 per cent market share in the fourth quarter of 2011, and the top smartphone vendor for 2011 as a whole, with a 19 per cent market share," it said. Gartner's principal research analyst, Roberta Cozza, said Western Europe and North America led most of the smartphone growth for Apple during the fourth quarter of 2011. "In Western Europe the spike in iPhone sales in the fourth quarter saved the overall smartphone market after two consecutive quarters of slow sales. "The fourth quarter saw Samsung and Apple cement their positions further at the top of the market as their brands and new products clearly stood out," she said. Cozza said LG, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Research In Motion (RIM) again recorded disappointing results as they struggled to improve volumes and profits significantly. "These vendors were also exposed to a much stronger threat from the mid-range and low-end of the smartphone market as ZTE and Huawei continued to gain share during the quarter," she said. Cozza said Samsung closed the gap with Nokia in overall market share. Nokia proved its ability to execute and deliver on time with its new Lumia 710 and 800 handsets, she said. "Nokia will have to continue to offer aggressive prices to encourage communications service providers to add its products to portfolios currently dominated by Android-based devices," she said. Meanwhile, Gartner said worldwide mobile device sales totalled 476.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011, a 5.4 per cent increase from the same period in 2010. In 2011 as a whole, end-users bought 1.8 billion units, an 11.1 per cent increase from 2010, it said. Annette Zimmermann, principal research analyst at Gartner, said expectations for 2012 were for the overall market to grow by about seven per cent, while smartphone growth was expected to slow to around 39 per cent. In the fourth quarter of 2011, Nokia's mobile phone sales numbered 111.7 million units, an 8.7 per cent decrease from last year. -- BERNAMA