Research In Motion's BlackBerry and Apple's iPhone in the first
quarter rose to the fifth and sixth place in the global market for
all types of cell phones. Motorola Inc. fell to eighth place. Nokia still remained number one, followed by Samsung, LG, and SonyEricssion with only a marginal lead to BlackBerry reports iSuppli.
Counter to industry trends BlackBerry went into fifth place up
from 8th place in 2009. RIM, that makes only Blackberry
smartphone devices, achieved the best results of the Top 10 cell phone
brands in the first quarter, with shipments rising by 364,000 units
or 3.6 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2009.
Apple in the first quarter shipped 8.8 million iPhones, giving
it a 3.04 percent share of global
shipments. Company shipments rose by 0.2 percent from 8.7 million in the
fourth quarter of 2009, giving it the No. 6 position in the market in
the first quarter, up from ninth place in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Apple achieved the second-largest sequential increase in shipments among
the Top 10 brands.
RIM and Apple were the only smartphone brands among the Top 10
to achieve sequential quarterly growth.
Because of its difficulties in offering compelling new models
following the success of the RAZR, Motorola's share of global cell phone
shipments has been sliding over the past three years. As recently as
the first quarter of 2007, Motorola was the world's second largest cell
phone shipper after Nokia.
However, while Motorola's unit shipments continued to slide in
the first quarter, this decline now reflects the company's strategic
decision to shift its focus away from low-margin, mass-market cell
phones and toward higher-profit products like the Droid and Backflip.
In contrast, Motorola in the first quarter posted a 29.2
percent decline in shipments to 8.5 million units, down from 12 million
in the fourth quarter of 2009. This caused the company's rank to slide
two positions to eighth place, falling behind both Apple and Chinese
handset OEM ZTE Co. Ltd.
"RIM is now within a hair's breadth of displacing Sony Ericsson
for the No. 3 rank in the global cell phone market," Tina Teng, senior analyst, wireless communications, for iSuppli. observed. "It
will be interesting to see how much more market share RIM and Apple can
gain in 2010."
Following normal
seasonal patterns, worldwide cell phone shipments declined in the first
quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2009. Shipments declined to
288.1 million units, down 13.9 percent from 334.6 million in the fourth
quarter. However, first-quarter shipments soared by 13.8 percent
compared to the same period in 2009, providing a very optimistic
indicator of market growth this year.
The Top 4 players in the first quarter retained their rankings
compared to the fourth quarter. Among the Top 4, only No. 2 Samsung
Electronics Co. Ltd. was able to perform better than the industry
average with only a 6.5 percent sequential decline in revenue.
No. 1 Nokia's market share
in the first quarter slipped to 37.4 percent, down slightly from 37.9
percent during the same period in 2009, as its shipments declined by
15.1 percent sequentially. Samsung's limited decline in shipments
allowed the company to increase its market share to 22.3 percent in the
first quarter, compared to 20.6 percent during the same period in 2009.
With its relatively strong performance, Samsung has managed to close the
market share gap with Nokia to just 15.1 points, down from 17.4 points
in the fourth quarter of 2009.
No. 3-ranked LG Electronics suffered a 20.1 decline in revenue,
causing its market share to decrease to 9.4 percent, down from 10.1
percent during the fourth quarter of 2009, widening its gap with Samsung
as a result. Sony Ericsson in fourth place suffered a 28.1 percent
decline in shipments, causing its share to decline to 3.6 percent, down
from 4.4 percent during the fourth quarter of 2009.
Although ZTE sprinted like a marathon runner in 2009 and
grabbed the No. 5 slot in the fourth quarter of the year, its revenue in
the first quarter fell 35.6 percent sequentially, causing it to fall
behind Apple in market-share rankings to seventh place.