Worldwide mobile phone sales topped 419 million in Q1 2012. After 10 consecutive quarters of growth, sales fell 2% from the first quarter of 2011, according to Gartner, Inc. The decline was attributed to lower demand in Asian markets:
“Global sales of mobile devices declined more than expected due to a slowdown in demand from the Asia/Pacific region,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. “The first quarter, traditionally the strongest quarter for Asia – which is driven by Chinese New Year, saw a lack of new product launches from leading manufacturers, and users delayed upgrades in the hope of better smartphone deals arriving later in the year.”
Gartner also reduced its overall 2012 market forecast by some 20 million devices. “The lower results in the first quarter of 2012 have led us to be cautious about sales for the remainder of the year,” said Annette Zimmermann, principal research analyst at Gartner.
Echoing earlier findings, Gartner named Samsung the world’s top mobile handset vendor for the quarter and the world’s largest smartphone vendor. Samsung is particularly dominant in Android-based smartphone sales where it took a greater than 40% market share. No other vendor reached more than a 10% share!
Behind Samsung in worldwide mobile device sales are Nokia, Apple, ZTE, and LG. The top ten is completed by Huawei, Research In Motion, Motorola, Sony Mobile Communications, and HTC.
On the operating system front, Android and iOS dominate, accounting for 79% of the market (56.1% for Android and 22.9% for iOS). Holding down third is Symbian with BlackBerry, Bada, and Windows Phone following.
Read more: Gartner