The top five mobile phone makers were Nokia (1), Samsung (2), LG (3), RIM BlackBerry (4) and Sony Ericsson (5) reported Gartner Inc. These results are slightly different from iSuppli figures that show BlackBerry and number 5 and Apple iPhone at number 6.
There were 314.7 million units in the
first quarter of 2010 of worldwide mobile phone sales, a 17
per cent increase from the same period in 2009, according to Gartner,
Inc.
"In the first quarter of 2010, smartphone sales to end users saw
their strongest year-on-year increase since 2006," said Carolina
Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. "This quarter saw RIM, a
pure smartphone player, make its debut in the top five mobile devices
manufacturers, and saw Apple increase its market share by 1.2 percentage
points. Android's momentum continued into the first quarter of 2010,
particularly in North America, where sales of Android-based phones
increased 707 per cent year-on-year.
Smarpthone sales to end users
reached 54.3 million units, an
increase of 48.7 per cent from the first quarter of 2009. Among the
most successful vendors were those that controlled an integrated set of
operating system (OS), hardware and services.The first quarter also saw some
movement outside the top five mobile handset vendor rankings (see Table
1), Hong Kong-based manufacturer G-Five made its debut into the
top 10, grabbing 1.4 per cent of market share in the first quarter of
2010. 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 19.20 per cent in the first quarter of 2010, 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 per cent in the first quarter of
2010," said Ms Milanesi.
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. We expect sales of white-box
products to remain very healthy for the remainder of 2010, especially
outside of China," said Ms Milanesi.
Table 1
Worldwide Mobile Terminal Sales to End Users in 1Q10
(Thousands of Units)
|
Company |
1Q10 Units |
1Q10 Market Share (%) |
1Q09 Units |
1Q09 Market Share (%) |
|
Nokia |
110,105.6 |
35.0 |
97,398.2 |
36.2 |
|
Samsung |
64,897.1 |
20.6 |
51,385.4 |
19.1 |
|
LG |
27,190.1 |
8.6 |
26,546.9 |
9.9 |
|
RIM |
10,552.5 |
3.4 |
7,233.5 |
2.7 |
|
Sony Ericsson |
9,865.6 |
3.1 |
14,470.3 |
5.4 |
|
9,574.5 |
3.0 |
16,587.3 |
6.2 |
|
|
Apple |
8,359.7 |
2.7 |
3,938.8 |
1.5 |
|
ZTE |
5,375.4 |
1.7 |
3,369.6 |
1.3 |
|
G-Five |
4,345.0 |
1.4 |
|
|
|
3,970.0 |
1.3 |
3,217.9 |
1.2 |
|
|
Others |
60,418.1 |
19.2 |
44,972.2 |
16.5 |
|
Total |
314,653.50 |
100.0 |
269,120.10 |
100.0 |
Source: Gartner (May 2010)
In the first quarter of 2010, Nokia's
mobile phone sales to end users reached 110.1 million units, a 1.2 per
cent 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
of 2010 at the earliest, and Nokia will continue to feel pressure on its
average selling price (ASP) from vendors such as HTC, RIM and Samsung,"
said Ms Milanesi. The reorganisation announced last week demonstrated
that Nokia is trying to streamline the reporting process to deliver
results quickly, which we believe shows its recognition of the pressure
it faces from investors.
Samsung sold 64.9 million devices in the first quarter of 2010, an
increase of 26.3 per cent year-on-year. Samsung was one of the five
vendors in the top10 vendors ranking to grow its market share, which
increased by 1.5 percentage points year-on-year. Samsung saw healthy
margins in the first quarter of 2010 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 in
the first quarter of 2010, a 45.9 per cent increase year-on-year. RIM is
making its debut into the top five worldwide mobile handset
manufacturers ranking. RIM's focus this quarter was centred on its
ecosystem strategy, its tightly integrated control of store, OS and
device played to RIM's strengths.
Sony Ericsson sold enough units to remain in the top
five mobile handset manufacturers, but its market share declined 2.3
percentage points in the first quarter of 2010. The channel held some
inventory for Sony Ericsson in the first quarter of 2010 as some new
products reached the channel late into the quarter. One of Sony
Ericsson's most important future differentiators is its relationship
with its parent company, Sony. This partnership, combined with Sony
Ericsson's ownership of the strongest portfolio it has had since 2007,
place it well to lead the trend toward increasingly connected consumer
devices.
The first quarter of 2010 was Apple's strongest quarter
yet, which placed the company in the No. 7 position with a 112.2 per
cent 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," said
Ms Milanesi. "The second quarter of 2010 will be a very important one
for Apple. We expect 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, Android
and Apple were the winners in the first quarter of 2010 (see Table 2).
Android moved to the No. 4 position 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. Symbian
remained in the No. 1 position but continued to lose as Nokia remains
weak in the high-end portfolio.
Smartphones accounted for 17.3 per cent of all mobile handset sales
in the first quarter of 2010, up from 13.6 per cent in the same period
in 2009.
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," said Roberta Cozza, principal research
analyst at Gartner.
Table 2
Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users
by Operating System in 1Q10 (Thousands of Units)
|
Company |
1Q10 Units |
1Q10 Market Share (%) |
1Q09 Units |
1Q09 Market Share (%) |
|
Symbian |
24,069.8 |
44.3 |
17,825.3 |
48.8 |
|
Research In Motion |
10,552.6 |
19.4 |
7,533.6 |
20.6 |
|
iPhone OS |
8,359.7 |
15.4 |
3,848.1 |
10.5 |
|
Android |
5,214.7 |
9.6 |
575.3 |
1.6 |
|
Microsoft Windows Mobile |
3,706.0 |
6.8 |
3,738.7 |
10.2 |
|
Linux |
1,993.9 |
3.7 |
2,540.5 |
7.0 |
|
Other OSs |
404.8 |
0.7 |
445.9 |
1.2 |
|
Total |
54,301.4 |
100.0 |
36,507.4 |
100.0 |
Source: Gartner (May 2010)
Mobile e-mail, rich messaging and social networking will continue to
drive demand for smartphones and enhanced phones that feature full
qwerty hardware keyboards. "To compete in such a crowded market,
manufacturers need to tightly integrate hardware, user interface, and
cloud and social networking services if their solutions are to appeal to
users," said Ms Cozza. "Just adding a qwerty keyboard will not make a
device fit the communication's habits of today's various consumer
segments."
Additional information is in the
Gartner report "Competitive Landscape: Mobile Devices, Worldwide, 1Q10."
The report is available on Gartner's website at www.gartner.com.