Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totalled 314.7 million units in the first quarter, up 17 percent from 269.1 million in the same period of 2009, according to a study by Gartner. Smarpthone sales to end users reached 54.3 million units, up 48.7 percent from the first quarter of 2009. Smartphones accounted for 17.3 percent of all mobile handset sales in Q1, up from 13.6 percent in the same period in 2009.
In the first quarter , smartphone sales to end users saw their strongest year-on-year increase since 2006, said research vice president at Gartner Carolina Milanesi (photo). Growth in the mobile devices market was driven by double-digit growth of smartphone sales in mature markets, helped by wider product availability as well as mass market price tags. Increasing sales of white-box products in some emerging regions, in particular India, also drove sales of mobile phones upward. Among the most successful vendors were those that controlled an integrated set of operating system, hardware and services.
The first quarter also saw some movement outside the top five mobile handset vendor rankings, with Hong Kong-based manufacturer G-Five made its debut into the top ten, grabbing 1.4 percent of market share in the first quarter. The rise of white-box manufacturers from Asia has also helped the "others" section, as a proportion of overall sales, increase its market share to 19.2 percent in Q1, up 2.7 percentage points. This is having a profound effect on the top five mobile handset manufacturers’ combined share that dropped from 73.3 in the first quarter of 2009 to 70.7 percent in this first quarter, the study said.
In the first quarter, Nokia's mobile phone sales to end users reached 110.1 million units with a share of 35 percent, a 1.2 percent decline in market share year-on-year. Although Nokia's midtier products sold well, Nokia lacks a high-volume driver in the high-end. MeeGo based devices and other high-end products will not rejuvenate Nokia's premium portfolio until the end of the third quarter at the earliest, and Nokia will continue to feel pressure on its average selling price from vendors such as HTC, RIM and Samsung, the study said.
Samsung ranked second and sold 64.9 million devices in the first quarter, an increase of 26.3 percent year-on-year. Samsung was one of the five vendors in the top ten vendors ranking to grow its market share, which increased by 1.5 percentage points year-on-year. Samsung saw healthy margins and was also able to grow its presence in developing markets such as India and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
RIM’s mobile phone sales reached 10.6 million units, a 45.9 percent increase year-on-year. RIM is making its debut into the top five worldwide mobile handset manufacturers ranking. Sony Ericsson at the fourth position sold enough units to remain in the top five mobile handset manufacturers, but its market share declined 2.3 percent points in the first quarter. The first quarter was Apple’s strongest quarter yet, which placed the company in the number seven position with a 112.2 percent increase in mobile devices sales.
Growth came partly from new communication service providers in established markets, such as the UK, and stronger sales in new markets such as China and South Korea. The study expects that Apple will present its new iPhone in June during its Worldwide Developer Conference, which will be the first to feature the latest release of the iPhone OS that includes welcome improvements for developers and users, such as multitasking.
In the smartphone OS market, Symbian was at the first position, but its market share fell to 44.3 percent from 48.8 percent. Symbian continued to lose as Nokia remains weak in the high-end portfolio. Symbian was followed by RIM with 19.4 percent share, and iPhone OS with 15.4 percent. Android moved to the number four position with a market share of 9.6 percent, up from 1.6 percent and displacing Microsoft Windows Mobile for the first time. Both Android and Apple were the only two OSs vendors among the top five to increase market share year-on-year.
As seen with the iPad and web books based on Google's Android platform, mobile OS ecosystems are developing and will move beyond smartphones to continue to deliver consumer value and a rich user experience. Mobile e-mail, rich messaging and social networking will continue to drive demand for smartphones and enhanced phones that feature full Qwerty hardware keyboards. The study expects sales of white-box products to remain very healthy for the remainder of this year, especially outside of China.
