Global mobile sales see 2% decline for Q1 2012
Gartner’s latest worldwide mobile sales figures show that first-quarter mobile sales have slipped 2%, when compared to the same time-period in 2011, while Samsung and Android dominate mobile and smartphone markets.
Gartner research analyst, Anshul Gupta explains that the decline was more than expected, but was due to a decline in demand from the Asia/Pacifc region.
“The first quarter…saw a lack of new product launches from leading manufacturers, and users delayed upgrades in the hope of better smartphone deals arriving later in the year,” he said.
Total sales for the quarter amounted to 419.1 million units, down 2% from Q1 2011.
“The lower results in the first quarter of 2012 have led us to be cautious about sales for the remainder of the year,” said Gartner analyst, Annette Zimmermann.
“We feel a downward adjustment to our 2012 figures, in the range of 20 million units, is unavoidable.”
Global mobile sales Q1 2011/12 (millions of units)
| Vendor | 1Q12 Unit Shipments | 1Q12 Market Share | 1Q11 Unit Shipments | 1Q11 Market Share |
| Samsung | 86.56 | 20.7% | 68.78 | 16.1% |
| Nokia | 83.16 | 19.8% | 107.56 | 25.1% |
| Apple | 33.12 | 7.9% | 16.88 | 3.9% |
| ZTE | 17.44 | 4.2% | 10.79 | 2.5% |
| LG | 14.76 | 3.5% | 23.99 | 5.6% |
| Huawei | 10.80 | 2.6% | 7.00 | 1.6% |
| Research in Motion | 9.94 | 2.4% | 13.00 | 3.0% |
| Motorola | 8.37 | 2.0% | 8.80 | 2.1% |
| Sony Mobile | 7.90 | 1.9% | 7.92 | 1.9% |
| HTC | 7.70 | 1.8% | 9.31 | 2.2% |
| Other | 139.39 | 33.3% | 153.80 | 35.9% |
| Total | 419.11 | 100.0% | 427.85 | 100.0% |
World’s top handset vendor
Samsung has become the world’s top mobile handset vendor – replacing Nokia who had held the position since 1998. Samsung managed to sell over 86 million units in Q1 2012 – a 25,9% increase from the almost 69 million units sold in 2011.
Comparitively, Nokia slumped 22,7%, only selling around 83 million units in Q1 2012, down significantly from the 107.5 million units sold in 2011.
Continuing its domination, Samsung also supplanted Apple as the world’s number one smartphone seller, selling 38 million smartphones worldwide.
Samsung’s Android-based smartphone sales in the first quarter of 2012 represented more than 40 percent of Android-based smartphone sales worldwide, Gartner said.
Google’s Android operating system dominated, accounting for more than half of the operating systems on smartphones at 56.1%.
Biggest slips
According to the figures, BlackBerry maker, Research in Motion (RIM), LG and Nokia all lost reach in the mobile market.
Having lost out on the first wave of the smartphone business to Apple and Samsung, Nokia has placed all its bets on its Lumia range, which has seen slow sales.
Investors have been unimpressed with the company’s strategy, and ratings agencies, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s both cut the company’s credit rating to “junk” status.
“Smartphone sales are becoming of paramount importance at a worldwide level. For example, smartphone volumes contributed to approximately 43.9 per cent of overall sales for Samsung as opposed to 16 per cent for Nokia,” Gartner said.
RIM
Faced with stiff competition in all its markets, RIM struggled to match the popularity of its BlackBerry smartphones the year previously, with Gartner reporting a 2,4% decline in the company’s global market share.
The company underwent a management shift and restructuring and is banking on its next generation smartphones to make an impact on the market.
However, RIM’s showing of BlackBerry 10 at the BlackBerry World Conference failed to impress investors, causing the company’s stock to drop by 6% on the day (1 May 2012).
“RIM desperately needs to deliver winning BB10 products to retain users and stay competitive. This will be very challenging, because BB10 lacks strong developer support, and a new BB10 device will only be available in the fourth quarter of 2012,” Gartner said.
Global smartphone sales by operating system Q1 2011/12 (millions of units)
| Vendor | 1Q12 Unit Shipments | 1Q12 Market Share | 1Q11 Unit Shipments | 1Q11 Market Share |
| Android | 81.07 | 56.1% | 36.35 | 36.4% |
| iOS | 33.12 | 22.9% | 16.88 | 16.9% |
| Symbian | 12.47 | 8.6% | 27.60 | 27.7% |
| Research in Motion | 9.94 | 6.9% | 13.00 | 13.0% |
| Bada | 3.84 | 2.7% | 1.86 | 1.9% |
| Microsoft | 2.71 | 1.9% | 2.58 | 2.6% |
| Other | 1.24 | 0.9% | 1.49 | 1.5% |
| Total | 144.39 | 100.0% | 99.78 | 100.0% |
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