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Smartphones reach global milestone

Smartphone sales pass feature phone sales for the first time, driven by the emergence of low-cost devices.

Bonnie Tubbs
By Bonnie Tubbs, ITWeb telecoms editor.
Johannesburg, 15 Aug 2013
Smartphones have outsold feature phones for the first time.
Smartphones have outsold feature phones for the first time.

Smartphones have reached another global milestone, with sales exceeding that of feature phones for the first time, according to Gartner's latest figures.

Worldwide smartphone sales reached 225 million units in the second quarter of 2013 - up 46.5% from the same period last year - while sales of feature phones to end-users totalled 210 million units, a year-on-year decline of 21%.

This comes about three-and-a-half months after the International Data Corporation's report, which revealed that more smartphones than feature phones were shipped in the first quarter of the year.

Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner, says smartphones accounted for 51.8% of cellphone sales in the second quarter of 2013.

Brand wars

Samsung maintained the number one position in the global smartphone market by a long shot, with its share of smartphone sales reaching 31.7% - up from 29.7% in the second quarter of last year. This amounts to 71 million units sold.

Samsung's biggest rival, Apple, saw smartphone sales reach 32 million units in the second quarter of 2013, up 10.2% from a year ago. The US-based tech giant currently has 14.2% of the global smartphone market, according to Gartner - a drop of 4.6% from this time last year.

In the smartphone operating system (OS) market, Microsoft overtook BlackBerry for the first time, taking the number three spot with 3.3% market share in the second quarter of 2013.

However, says Gupta, although Microsoft has managed to increase share and volume in the quarter, the company would do well to keep its focus on growing interest from app developers to help grow its appeal among users.

Android not only maintained a sizeable lead, but also managed to grow it, acquiring 79% of the market in the second quarter. Second in line, with 14.2% market share, is Apple's iOS, with Microsoft and BlackBerry following, and Lenovo's Bada OS, Nokia's Symbian OS and other lesser-known OSes, respectively, taking up the latter spots on the log.

On the money

Gupta says Gartner's forecast that worldwide mobile phone sales would total 1.82 billion units this year is right on target, considering the second quarter sales are broadly on track. "Flagship devices brought to market in time for the holidays, and the continued price reduction of smartphones will drive consumer adoption in the second half of the year."

Senior ABI analyst, Michael Morgan, says the growth of smartphones in prepaid and emerging markets will be the primary driver of low-cost smartphone growth. "As the feature phone segment continues to lose its battle for relevance, the low-cost smartphone has become the tool for operators seeking to drive increased data revenues."

World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck echoes the sentiment that low-cost smartphones are driving the devices' unprecedented growth.

He believes the local feature phone market is set to shrink dramatically over the next two to three years. "We will see a dramatic drop in the price of the entry-level smartphones in the next two years as there is a growing demand for simpler phones."

Goldstuck fingers Samsung as a prime case in point, saying the manufacturer is already famed as the market leader in the low-cost smartphone category. "The Galaxy Pocket offers the Android experience at a fraction of the cost of premium smartphones."

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