Smartphone sales jump worldwide, Android leads in the 2011 Market
As mobile devices continue their manifold leap in sales every quarter, smartphone sales have been reported to grow the fastest..
A new report form Gartner has revealed that by the end of the second quarter of 2011, nearly 429 million mobile units were sold to end customers which are a 16.5 percent jump over the figures a year ago. Smartphone sales, however, were up by 74 percent and accounted for 25 percent of the overall sales in the said quarter. This is a 17 percent increase in volume over the same period a year ago.
Google is presently the champion in the market with almost half of its sale of smartphones coming from android-based devices. Though Symbian is clutching on to the second place, it has lost nearly 50 percent of its market share as compared to 2010. The Apple iOS was the only other operating system which witnessed an increase in the sales since 2010. However, it hasn’t been able to climb that much. This is mostly because it has merely two handsets on sale i.e. the 3GS and the iPhone4. Besides, it hasn’t manufactured any new model for over a year now. Microsoft, the BlackBerry maker, RIM, as well as "others" experienced significant erosion in their respective market share.
As regards the overall vendors of mobile phones, both feature phones and smartphones, Nokia leads the pack with 22.8 per cent market share. But that too, is down from the 30.3 per cent share it enjoyed the last year. Samsung, despite a marginal dip, managed to hold on to the second spot while LG came third.
ZTE, HTC, Huawei and Apple were the only vendors who saw increase in their sales. Motorola and RIM largely retained their same place last year. Sony Ericsson lost almost half of its market share from 3 per cent to 1.7 per cent.
