The latest reports from financial Analysts, Gartner, has shown that global mobile phone sales actually dipped slightly, down 2%, and that Samsung has leapfrogged Nokia as the top-selling mobile phone company on the planet.
Despite the blip in total mobile phone sales, Gartner reported that the amount of mobile phone units shifted reached 419.1 million in the first quarter of 2012. The 2% drop was the first time the market has exhibited a downturn since a similar decline back in 2009.
Chief research analyst at Gartner, Anshul Gupta, said: “Global sales of mobile devices declined more than expected due to a slowdown in demand from the Asia-Pacific region. The first quarter, traditionally the strongest quarter for Asia, which is driven by Chinese New Year, saw a lack of new product launches from leading manufacturers, and users delayed upgrades in the hope of better smartphone deals arriving later in the year.”
Samsung snatched the ‘highest-selling mobile vendor’ accolade by laying claim to 20.7 per cent of the market. This sales surge from the Korean manufacturer was enough to nudge Nokia from their long held position of market leader.
Claiming 19.8% share of the market, Nokia were knocked from their position as the dominant market force for the first time since they climbed to the top spot in 1998.
Selling mobile phones such as the hugely popular Galaxy SII helped the vendor reach figures of 86.6 million units shifted worldwide, which was a 25.9 per cent increase from last year.
In the all-important smartphone market, Samsung also wrestled the imitative from their opponents and toppled Apple from top spot. Sales of Samsung’s smartphone range bulged with 38 million mobiles being purchased. Samsung’s Android-based phones currently represent more than 40 per cent of Android-driven smartphone sales worldwide. Samsung’s current dominance is startling: no other mobile phone vendor achieved more than 10 per cent market share.
Predictably, smartphone sales continued to push the mobile phone market forward. 144.4 million smartphone handsets were shifted in Q1 2012, which is close approaching a 45 per cent year-on-year increase.
The two bitter rivals at the top, Samsung and Apple strengthened their combined market position with a united market share to 49.3 per cent, a leap up from 29.3 per cent in Q1 2011. In comparison, Nokia had to stand back and watch its smartphone market share drop to 9.2 per cent.