Global Q3 2013 mobile phone sales reach 455.6 million units with 5.7% Y-o-Y growth as even W. Europe returns to growth for the first time in the year, Gartner reports.
Smartphones account for 55% of overall sales at 250.2m units-- the highest share to date, with growth reaching 45.8% Y-o-Y through customers replacing feature phones with smartphones, even in emerging markets.
“Sales of feature phones continued to decline and the decrease was more pronounced in markets where the average selling price (ASP) for feature phones was much closer to the ASP affordable smartphones,”Gartner says. “In markets such as China and Latin America, demand for feature phones fell significantly as users rushed to replace their old models with smartphones.”
The analyst forecasts overall 2013 WW mobile phone sales will reach 1.81 billion units with 3.4% growth. However mature markets will see a slowdown in smartphone sales, since "consumers [...] will favor the purchase of smaller-sized tablets over the replacement of older smartphones.”
In the smartphone vendor rankings Samsung retains leadership of the market, even if with flat (32.1%) share, with the Galaxy Note 3 launch cementing the Korean giant's position as large display smartphone leader.
Apple follows with sales reaching 30.3m units with 23.2% Y-o-Y growth. “While the arrival of the new iPhones 5S and 5C had a positive impact on overall sales, such impact could have been greater had they not started shipping late in the quarter," Gartner remarks. "While we saw some inventory built up for the iPhone 5C, there was good demand for iPhone 5S with stock out in many markets."
Lenovo makes it to 3rd place as sales reach 12.9m units with 84.5% Y-o-Y growth through sales in its home Chinese market. In 4th and 5th place are LG and Huawei respectively.
As for operating systems Android makes 81.9% of the Q3 2013 market, up from 72.6% in Q3 2012. However Gartner describes Microsoft as the winner-- Windows Phone share grows by 123% Y-o-Y to 2.3%, and the Nokia devices and services acquisition should drive the appeal of the Windows ecosystem further.
