Smartphones Sales Beat Future Phones for First Time
While it’s not “breaking news” Gartner’s research has revealed that smartphone sales have indeed exceeded those of feature phones for the first time, last quarter. Overall, global smartphone sales have increased by 46.5% to 435 million in Q2 of this year. Last years #’s were 225 million total. Feature phones meanwhile, saw a decline to 210 million units.
When looking at Operating System share, Android takes 79% of the market with 177.9 million units, while iOS takes second place with 31.9 million units sold and a 14.2% share.
Windows and Blackberry sit at 3.3% and 2.7% respectively.
As for manufacturers, Samsung increased its market share to 31.7% from 29.7%, and remains ahead of Apple. Interestingly, a recent study showed that in the US 40% of users have an Apple device.
Despite Apple having increased the # of devices sold, the OS share dropped by over 4% this year. Gartner also believes that the release of Apple’s much alleged “cheaper iPhone” the “iPhone 5C” could in fact cannibalize the sales of their existing products. I.E. The iPhone 5, and soon to come – 5S. Time will tell.