Samsung tops mobile phone shipments

According to research firm Strategy Analytics, Samsung now accounts for a quarter of all mobile phone shipments worldwide.  Samsungs’ shipments rose by almost 20% to 396.5 million handsets.  Nokia, came second with 21.3% of the market share, and Apple came 3rd with 8.6% of the market share.

Whilst Apple is in third place, it has still done very well with its shipments growing by 46%, whilst Nokia, whilst second saw a fall of 20% in shipments.  These figures include low end phones, which Apple does not particularly cover, however its large increase in orders are pretty impressive, mainly to increasing exposure to the Asian market.

Strategy Analytics said:

Apple shipped a record 135.8 million mobile phones worldwide in 2012. Apple delivered 46 percent annual growth last year, which was bolstered by solid demand in North America and Asia. Apple’s launch of the iPhone 5 in Q4 2012 was a success as volumes ramped up in dozens of countries worldwide

Whilst the figures stated include all mobile phones, there was a particularly strong global demand for smartphones, where smartphone shipments grew by 43% to 700.1 million units, up from 490.5 million units in 2011.  This was driven by a maturing demand in Europe and North America, however much of the future growth is expected to be in emerging markets, especially with regard to Apple.  Mark Newman of research firm Informa said with regard to Apple:

A lot of their continued growth will be in emerging markets, in Bric countries such as Brazil, India and China. There has certainly been this feeling that Samsung is catching up up, and overtaking Apple in terms of sales.

Whilst Samsung and Apple have corned the market with the higher priced smartphones, there are quite a few companies vying to take their share of the cheaper smartphone market, with Nokia, LG, Motorola, HTC and Sony all in the running.
Link: http://technewstoday.net/2013/01/27/samsung-tops-mobile-phone-shipments/