Worldwide sales of mobile devices to end users totaled 428.7 million units in the second quarter of 2011, a 16.5 percent increase from the second quarter of 2010, according to Gartner.
Sales of smartphones were up 74 percent year-on-year and accounted for 25 percent of overall sales in the second quarter of 2011, up from 17 percent in the second quarter of 2010.
“Smartphone sales continued to rise at the expense of feature phones,” said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner, in a press release. “Consumers in mature markets are choosing entry-level and midrange Android smartphones over feature phones, partly due to carriers’ and manufacturers’ promotions.” However, replacement sales in Western Europe showed signs of fatigue as smartphone sales declined quarter-on-quarter.
Not surprisingly, Nokia’s smartphone sales into the channel in the second quarter of 2011 were low. That was due in part to a very competitive market that deflated demand for Symbian, but also to inventory management issues in Europe and China in particular, Gartner says.
Still, Nokia held onto the No. 1 position worldwide in terms of device sales, with 22.8 percent market share compared with its 30.3 percent share in the 2010 period. Samsung was No. 2 in the second quarter of 2011 with 16.3 percent share in the quarter, and LG came in No. 3 at 5.7 percent share. Apple was No. 4 at 4.6 percent share.
The combined share of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android in the smartphone OS market doubled to nearly 62 percent in the second quarter of 2011, up from just over 31 percent in the same period in 2010.
Part of Apple’s continued growth came from the 42 new carriers and 15 new countries that it entered in the second quarter, which brought its total coverage to 100 countries. In mainland China, Apple is the seventh-largest mobile phone vendor and third-largest smartphone vendor, Gartner says.
Research In Motion’s (RIM’s) share of the smartphone market declined to 12 percent in the second quarter, from 19 percent a year ago. The company lost its No. 5 position in the worldwide ranking of mobile device vendors to ZTE.
Gartner says Samsung’s Galaxy S II sold well, and the model went on to chalk up 5 million sales by the end of July.
In the category of worldwide smartphone sales to end users by OS, Samsung’s home-brewed bada OS was ranked with 1.9 percent share, just above Microsoft’s 1.6 percent share.
Gartner expects sales of mobile devices to grow around 12 percent in 2011.
