Apple Passes ZTE in Global Handset Market Share as Nokia Falls
Apple Passes ZTE in Global Handset Market Share
Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Apple Inc. passed ZTE Corp. to become the world’s fourth-largest mobile-phone maker by unit shipments in the first quarter, while Nokia Oyj’s lead shrank.
Apple Inc. passed ZTE Corp. to become the world’s fourth-largest mobile-phone maker by unit shipments in the first quarter, while Nokia Oyj’s lead shrank. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Apple Inc. (AAPL) passed ZTE Corp. to become the world’s fourth-largest mobile-phone maker by unit shipments in the first quarter, while Nokia Oyj (NOK1V)’s lead shrank, according to analyst reports.
Global mobile-phone shipments climbed 20 percent from a year earlier to 371.8 million units in the quarter, driven by continued growth in smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone and models running Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Android software, International Data Corp. said in a report. Strategy Analytics published similar figures shortly after Samsung Electronics Co.’s quarterly report today.
“Feature-phone makers will either need to become smartphone-dependent or help consolidate that part of the market,” Kevin Restivo, an analyst at Framingham, Massachusetts-based IDC, said in the report yesterday. Quick- messaging devices, which combine a feature phone with some smartphone-like apps and a Qwerty keyboard, “appear to be losing steam,” the researchers said.
Apple accounted for 5 percent of unit shipments, up from 2.8 percent a year earlier, according to the IDC figures. Samsung and LG Electronics Inc. (066570) maintained their second and third places, respectively. Nokia, which has topped mobile-phone shipment tables since 1998 on the strength of its basic and feature-phone volumes, dipped to 29 percent from 35 percent a year earlier, according to IDC.
Record Year
Cupertino, California-based Apple vaulted past Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB to gain fourth place in the third quarter, the analysts said on Oct. 29. It fell back to fifth place in the fourth quarter, behind ZTE, as the Chinese phonemaker expanded in smartphones, IDC said on Jan 28.
“This year will be the first year when every quarter exceeds 300 million units,” London-based analyst Neil Mawston of Strategy Analytics wrote in a report that pegged first- quarter mobile shipments at 350 million units, or 17 percent growth. The effects of the Japanese earthquake on parts availability “remain minor rather than major for most players,” he said.
Smartphones differ from feature phones in having more powerful processors and software, enabling them to replace portable computers for many uses from editing documents to showing movies.
The analysts’ totals and market-share figures differed because IDC counted a larger number of shipments by companies beyond the top five, including new vendors in Asia.
To contact the reporter on this story: Diana ben-Aaron in Helsinki at dbenaaron1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kenneth Wong in Berlin at kwong11@bloomberg.net
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