Telecom Lead India: Chinese mobile phone manufacturers – led by ZTE, Huawei, etc — increased their share in smartphone market to 29 percent in the first quarter of 2013 from 13.2 percent a year ago.
The Chinese and local manufacturers are offering affordable devices with optimum features such as 2.5G (EDGE) instead of 3G in a smartphone, said Gartner.
The global smartphone sales reached 210 million units in the first quarter of 2013, up 42.9 percent from the first quarter of 2012.
Mobile phone sales touched nearly 426 million units, a slight increase of 0.7 percent, according to Gartner.
Asia/Pacific region was the only region to show growth in mobile phone sales this quarter, with a 6.4 percent increase.
More than 226 million mobile phones were sold in Asia/Pacific in the first quarter of 2013, which helped the region increase its share of global mobile phones to 53.1 percent.
In China, mobile phone sales increased 7.5 percent, representing 25.7 percent of global mobile phone sales, up nearly 2 percent.
In the first quarter of 2013, sales of mobile phones in the EMEA region declined 3.6 percent.
The North America and Latin America’s mobile phone market fell 9.5 and 3.8 percent, respectively, while Japan saw its mobile phone sales drop 7.3 percent.
MAJOR PHONE VENDORS
Samsung grew 13 percent in the first quarter of 2013. Its share of smartphones reached 30.8 percent, up 3.2 percent.
Nokia’s phone share dropped 4.9 percent mainly due to a steep decline in feature phone sales. Though Nokia’s Windows Phone sales sequentially improved reaching a volume of 5.1 million units, Nokia is yet to see high growth in the smartphone segment.
Nokia’s position in the smartphone market dropped to No. 10 in the first quarter of 2013, from No. 8 in the fourth quarter of 2012.
Apple sold 38.3 million units in the first quarter of 2013. China was a key contributor to overall sales for Apple. It sold close to 7 million units in mainland China alone thanks to the lower price of the iPhone 4.
LG electronics moved in front of ZTE in the first quarter of 2013 for the No. 4 position.
ZTE had a weak performance, failing to grow its smartphone sales, selling 7.9 million smartphones in the first quarter of 2013, a 5.1 percent decline year-on-year.
Table 1
Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 1Q13 (Thousands of Units)
| Company | 1Q13
Units |
1Q13 Market Share (%) | 1Q12
Units |
1Q12 Market Share (%) |
| Samsung | 100,657.7 | 23.6 | 89,284.6 | 21.1 |
| Nokia | 63,215.2 | 14.8 | 83,162.5 | 19.7 |
| Apple | 38,331.8 | 9.0 | 33,120.5 | 7.8 |
| LG Electronics | 15,615.8 | 3.7 | 14,720.4 | 3.5 |
| ZTE | 14,606.6 | 3.4 | 17,379.7 | 4.1 |
| Huawei Technologies | 11,114.8 | 2.6 | 10,796.1 | 2.6 |
| TCL Communication | 8,515.9 | 2.0 | 7,396.6 | 1.7 |
| Sony Mobile Communications | 7,955.5 | 1.9 | 7,898.4 | 1.9 |
| Lenovo | 7,778.9 | 1.8 | 5,820.6 | 1.4 |
| Yulong | 7,478.8 | 1.8 | 3,146.6 | 0.7 |
| Others | 150,550.6 | 35.4 | 150,229.40 | 35.5 |
| Total | 425,821.6 | 100.0 | 422,955.4 | 100.0 |
Source: Gartner (May 2013)
In the first quarter of 2013, smartphones accounted for 49.3 percent of sales of mobile phones worldwide. This is up from 34.8 percent in the first quarter of 2012, and 44 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012. On the other hand, sales of feature phones contracted 21.8 percent in the first quarter of 2013.
Table 2
Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 1Q13 (Thousands of Units)
| Company | 1Q13
Units |
1Q13 Market Share (%) | 1Q12
Units |
1Q12 Market Share (%) |
| Samsung | 64,740.0 | 30.8 | 40,612.8 | 27.6 |
| Apple | 38,331.8 | 18.2 | 33,120.5 | 22.5 |
| LG Electronics | 10,080.4 | 4.8 | 4,961.4 | 3.4 |
| Huawei Technologies | 9,334.2 | 4.4 | 5,269.6 | 3.6 |
| ZTE | 7,883.3 | 3.8 | 4,518.9 | 3.1 |
| Others | 79,676.4 | 37.9 | 58,537.0 | 39.8 |
| Total | 210,046.1 | 100.0 | 147,020.2 | 100.0 |
Source: Gartner (May 2013)
