A new report from the International Data Corporation says more smartphones were shipped in Q1 2013 than feature phones, which is the first time smartphone shipments have dominated.
Overall, it reckons the worldwide mobile phone market grew 4% year-on-year in the first three months of this year. IDC says manufacturers shipped 418.6 million mobile phones in the quarter, of which 51.6% were smartphones. However, smartphone shipments were down 5.1% on the previous quarter.
Figures from rival analysts at ABI Research still show feature phones ahead. They say an estimated 405 million handsets (including 197 million smartphones) were shipped in the first quarter of 2013, up 12% year-on-year. This gives smartphones a 49% share of quarterly shipments.
Ramon Llamas, research manager with IDC’s Mobile Phone team, said “In addition to smartphones displacing feature phones, the other major trend in the industry is the emergence of Chinese companies among the leading smartphone vendors. A year ago, it was common to see previous market leaders Nokia, BlackBerry (then Research In Motion), and HTC among the top five. While those companies have been in various stages of transformation since, Chinese vendors, including Huawei and ZTE as well as Coolpad and Lenovo, have made significant strides to capture new users with their respective Android smartphones.”
Samsung had the largest share of overall phone shipments and of smartphone shipments.
Top five smartphone vendors, shipments and market share, Q1 2013
|
Vendor
|
Q1 2013 shipments (million)
|
Q1 2013 market share
|
Q1 2012 shipments (million)
|
Q1 2012 market share
|
Year-on-year change
|
|
Samsung
|
70.7
|
32.7%
|
44.0
|
28.8%
|
60.7%
|
|
Apple
|
37.4
|
17.3%
|
35.1
|
23.0%
|
6.6%
|
|
LG
|
10.3
|
4.8%
|
4.9
|
3.2%
|
110.2%
|
|
Huawei
|
9.9
|
4.6%
|
5.1
|
3.3%
|
94.1%
|
|
ZTE
|
9.1
|
4.2%
|
6.1
|
4.0%
|
49.2%
|
|
Others
|
78.8
|
36.4%
|
57.5
|
37.7%
|
37.0%
|
|
Total
|
216.2
|
100.0%
|
152.7
|
100.0%
|
41.6%
|
[Chart; IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report]