Global mobile phone sales grew 17 per cent in Q1: Gartner

As per a recent study by Gartner, the USA-based global research firm, worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totalled about 314 million units in the first quarter this year. This is a 17 per cent increase from the same period in 2009.
The report also states that smartphones accounted for 17.3 per cent of all mobile handset sales in the first quarter this year, up from 13.6 per cent in the same period in 2009. Also, the sale of smartphones to end users reached 54.3 million units, which is an increase of 48.7 per cent from the first quarter of 2009.
In the first quarter of this year, Nokia’s mobile phone sales to end users reached over 110 million units, a 1.2 per cent decline in market share year-on-year. Although Nokia’s mid tier products sold well, the company lacks a volume driver in the high-end.
Samsung sold almost 65 million devices in this period, which in an increase of 26.3 per cent year-on-year. The company saw healthy margins in the first quarter this year and was also able to expand its presence in developing markets such as India and the Commonwealth of Independent States, which include Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia etc.
RIM, the maker of BlackBerry, sold 10.6 million mobile phones in the first quarter of the year, a 45.9 per cent increase year-on-year. RIM is now among the top five mobile handset manufacturers worldwide.
Sony Ericsson sold enough units to remain among the top five mobile handset manufacturers, but its market share declined by 2.3 percentage points in the first quarter this year.
For Apple, this was the strongest quarter yet, which placed the company in the seventh position with a 112.2 per cent increase in mobile devices sales.
In the smartphone operating system (OS) market, Android and Apple were the most popular brands in the first quarter of the year. Android moved to the fourth position, displacing Microsoft Windows Mobile for the first time. Both Android and Apple were the only two OS vendors among the top five to increase market share year-on-year. Symbian remained the most popular, but continued to lose as Nokia remains weak in the high-end mobile range.
Carolina Milanesi, research vice president, Gartner, said in a company statement, “This quarter saw RIM (Research in Motion), 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.”
She further added, “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”.