According to IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors have shipped a total of 1004.3 million smartphones worldwide in 2013, a growth of 38.4 percent from the 725.3 million units in 2012.
The percentage of smartphones among all mobile units shipped in 2013 also grew at healthy pace. In 2012, smartphones accounted for 41.7% of all mobile shipments which increased to 55.10% in 2013.
According to IDC analysts, the growth was driven not by high end smartphones, but by sub-$150 priced ones which sold heavily in countries like China and India.
In 2011, total smartphone units shipped stood at 494.4 million, which means that their numbers have doubled in short span of 2 years.
In the fourth quarter of 2013, mobile vendors shipped a total of 284.4 million smartphones worldwide, up 24.2% from the 229.0 million units shipped in 4Q12.
The growth in Smartphone stands out even more due to the fact that, overall mobile shipments (Smart & Feature phones included) grew only 4.8% up from 1738.1 mln units in 2012 to 1821.8 mln units in 2013.
Smartphone Market Share By Vendor
Samsung remained the largest smartphone vendor and even increased their smartphone market share from 30.3 percent in 2012 to 31.3 percent in 2013. On the other hand, second placed Apple’s market share dropped from 18.7 percent to 15.3% percent.
Samsung’s smartphone shipment volumes grew from 219.7 million in 2012, to 313.9 million in 2013 a growth of 42.9 percent. In comparison Apple saw a growth of only 12.9% in their volume growing from 135.9 million to 153.4 million.
So, while Apple’s unit volume grew by about 12.9%, their market share fell by 3.4 percent, clearly suggesting that the likes of Huawei, LG, Lenovo and other Chinese vendors eroding their market share.
Source: IDC Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker
Among the top smartphone vendors, Lenovo grew the most in percentage terms (91.7%) followed by LG at 81.1& and Huawei at 67.5%.
Mobile Phone Vendor Market Share
Samsung led even in the mobile phone market share with 446.7 million shipments in 2013 notching up nearly a quarter of the entire mobile phone market share.
Second placed Nokia’s market share dropped significantly from 19.3% in 2012 to 13.8% in 2013. In terms of number of shipments, Nokia dropped by 25.2%, from 335.6 million units in 2012 to 251 million units in 2013.
Apple remained the 3rd largest mobile phones vendor in the world with 8.4% percent market share, a rise of 0.6 percentage points from 2012.
It is clear that Nokia’s Windows-only play has not really paid off, with them not even figuring in the top 10 smartphone vendors. And with feature phone market going down steadily, Nokia seems to have got themselves in a big hole!
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