Mobile News

Worldwide mobile device sales to end users totaled 325.6 million units in the Q2 of 2010, a 13.8% increase from the same period in 2009, according to Gartner Smartphone sales to end users accounted for 19% of worldwide mobile device sales, an increase of 50.5% from the Q2 of 2009.

Some new product introductions from Apple, HTC and Motorola, along with the drop in ASPs, drove strong sales of smartphones. This led also to some movement in Q2 in the top 10 mobile device manufacturer rankings as HTC with Android mainly made its debut in the top 10 worldwide ranking, holding the No. 8 position with 139.1% growth year-on-year.

Worldwide Mobile Device Sales to End Users in 2Q10 (Thousands of Units)

Source: Gartner (August 2010)

Nokia still remains on top. In the Q2 of 2010, its mobile device sales to end users reached 111.5 million units and a share of 34.2%. Anyway, good quality, well-priced products were not enough to maintain Nokia's leadership in the high-end sector. This caused Nokia to lose 2.6% points year-on-year.

Samsung sold 65.3 million devices in the Q2 of 2010 that translated into a 20.1% market share. Although Samsung's sales were strong in developing markets, its shift in product mix caused an overall decline in ASP. Further we will wait to see what will happen if Samsung really will be one of the first manufacturers to bring Windows Phone 7 devices to market. By now both LG and Samsung pursued market share in a low-margin market but this approach proved risky, as shown by LG's decline of 27.8% in ASP in the Q2 of 2010. "Although the mobile communication devices market showed double-digit growth this quarter, average selling prices (ASPs) were lower than expected and margins fell," said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.

RIM's mobile device sales to end users reached 11.2 million units in the Q2 of 2010, confirming RIM's position as the 4th largest brand with a share of 3.4% this quarter. New devices running BlackBerry OS 6.0 are already on their way to try to attract new users to the brand.

And here comes Apple with mobile device sales reached 8.7 million units or a 2.7% share of the overall mobile device market, but a 14.2% of the smartphone market. Apple maintained its No. 7 position in the worldwide mobile device market and held the No. 3 position in the worldwide smartphone market. Their sales would have been even higher if they hadn't to face that tight inventory management in preparation for the arrival of the iPhone 4 at the end of the Q2 of 2010. We will see how the iPhone 4 problem will reflect on the company in Q3 sales.

All-in-all Android expanded rapidly in the Q2 of 2010, overtaking Apple's iPhone OS to become the third-most-popular OS in the world. All smartphone sales to end users totaled 61.6 million units in the Q2 of 2010, a 50.5% increase from the same period in 2009. The top four smartphone OS vendors exhibited growth in the Q2 of 2010, and accounted for 91% of the worldwide smartphone OS market, up 6% year-on-year.

Table 2
Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2Q10 (Thousands of Units)

Source: Gartner (August 2010)

What is the future? According to Gartner it is in offering more affordable data plans to users. Tiered data plans will make smartphones more accessible to different market segments and help make smartphones the dominant device category in mature markets. This means that total cost of ownership will be lower, and new users will face less of a barrier to entry.