Analyst: Smartphone Sales Outpace Feature Phones for the First Time

Smartphones have officially overtaken feature phones.

In a new report, analysts at Gartner estimate phone manufacturers sold 225 million smartphones in the second quarter, compared to 210 million feature phones. Smartphone sales grew 46.5 percent year-over-year, while feature phone sales fell 21 percent.

Growth rates for smartphones were particularly strong in emerging markets such as Asia/Pacific (74.1 percent), Latin America (55.7 percent) and Eastern Europe (31.6 percent).

“Flagship devices brought to market in time for the holidays and the continued price reduction of smartphones will drive consumer adoption in the second half of the year,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner.

The research firm predicts phone companies will sell 1.82 billion mobile phones by the end of the year.

Consumer smartphone adoption is having a profound effect on the way people work.

Businesses are increasingly adopting “bring your own device” policies, where they allow workers to load company email, voicemail, video conferencing and work collaboration apps on their personal smartphones.

Samsung again topped the list as the world’s leading smartphone maker.

Roughly 1 out of 3 smartphones sold today bears a Samsung logo. Gartner estimates the company sold 71.3 million units in the second quarter, capturing 31.7 percent of the smartphone market (a 2 percent improvement over Samsung’s market share this time last year).

Apple saw its market share slip more than 4 percent year-over-year in the second quarter. The Cupertino-based company sold an estimated 31.9 million iPhones last quarter, capturing 14.2 percent of the smartphone market. This time last year, Apple held 18.8 percent of the market.

LG, Lenovo and ZTE rounded out the top five, squabbling over another 14 percent of the market. Other smartphone makers captured the remaining 40 percent of the market.

If it wasn’t abundantly clear before, it should be now: The world’s smartphone market is owned by Android and iOS. Collectively, Android and iOS captured 93.2 percent of the market.

Windows Phone (largely embraced by Nokia) made up 3.3 percent of the market, followed by BlackBerry at 2.7 percent.

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/mobile-apps/analyst-smartphone-sales-outpace-feature-phones-first-time-0593653?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=analyst-smartphone-sales-outpace-feature-phones-first-time