Smartphone Market Share Update

The fourth quarter of 2008 saw Smartphone sales growth rate dip to 3.7% (versus 4Q,2007). The report compiled by Gartner, says that the worldwide sales of Gartner reached 38.1 million units, and slowed down considerably due to the fewer compelling devices and a worsened economic climate. Sales in 4Q were marginally better than the Q3, 2008 number of 36.51 million. As a proportion of all mobile device sales, Smartphones bettered the 4Q, 2007 number of 11% by 1 percentage point i.e 12%.

Global sales of smartphones reached 139.3 million units for the year 2008, which betters 2007's smartphone sales (122.3 million units) by 13.9%!

The iconic Apple iPhone doubled its market share from 5.2% to 10.7%. It sold 4.1 Million iPhone against a 1.9 million number in 4Q, 2007. http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/03/11/gartner.on.q4.2008.sphones/. The buzz around this device is almost unreal, with Operators rooting for it. AT&T (Read Article) has declared iPhone 3G a success after the inroduction of the Iphone served as a catalyst for a shift towards data on its networks. It has reported a 51.2% jump YOY renue from data usage on its networks. For the full year of 2008, iPhone has reported a 245% jump in units shipped (3.3 Million in 2007 and 11.4 Million units in 2008). Canadian based Telco Rogers, has also reported 36% boost to its data revenues because of iPhone in its portfolio. iPhone now contributes 33% to Roger's Smartphone sales. (Read Article)

Boosted by the Blackberry Bold and the Storm, RIM's market shares went from 10.9% in 4Q 2007 to 19.5% in 4Q,2008. It registered a 85% growth in number of units from 4 million in 4Q,2007 to 7.4 million in 4Q,2008. Over the full year, RIM bettered its 11.6 Million sales number in 2007 to 23.1 Million in 2008 (a jump of 97%).

The T-mobile G1, the first Android operating system powered mobile, and the Touch Diamond helped HTC better its sales from 1.3 million (4Q,2007) to 1.6 million(4Q,2008), a jump of 20%.

Samsung's Omnia and its other touchscreen devices have finally led its break through into the top 5, displacing Sharp. Samsung registered a 138% growth in 4Q,2008 over 4Q,2007 taking its Smartphone number from .67 million to 1.6 million!

The looser for a while and this time as well, is Nokia, who has lost 10% market share in smartphones (from50.9% to 40.8%). While it is still the market leader by a mile, Nokia was the only compnay in the top 5 to have registered negative growth of 17% (from 18.7 million in 4Q,2007 to 15.56 million in 4Q,2008). On a year basis, Nokia stagnated and registered .8%growth in a market which grew 13%. Its full year market share reduced from 49.4% (in 2007) to 43.7% (in 2008). The numbers shipped were 60 million in both years.