Smartphone shipments pass 1 bln units in 2013

ISLAMABAD ( MEDIA )

The worldwide smartphone market shipped 1.004 billion units last year, up 38.4 percent from the 725.3 million units in 2012, according to estimates from IDC. In the fourth quarter of 2013, vendors shipped a total 284.4 million smartphones worldwide, up 24.2 percent from a year earlier.

Smartphones accounted for 55.1 percent of all mobile phone shipments in 2013, up from 41.7 percent in 2012. In the broader mobile phone market, global shipments reached 1.822 billion units in 2013, up 4.8 percent from a year earlier. Fourth-quarter shipments reached 488.4 million, an increase of 0.9 percent year-on-year.

Samsung added 1 percent point of market share in smartphones, to strengthen its lead at 31.3 percent of shipments. It also grew by almost 1 percent in the broader market, taking 24.6 percent of the total mobile market. Nokia’s share of the total market dropped to 13.8 percent from 19.3 in 2012, and it did not make the top five smartphone makers.

Apple was in second place in smartphones, although its share dropped to 15.3 percent from 18.7 in 2012. Apple took 8.4 percent of the total mobile phone market. LG ranked fourth in the total market with a 3.8 percent share and fifth in smartphones with 4.8 percent, both up on a year earlier.

Huawei came third in smartphones, growing its share to 5.8 percent, and Lenovo moved to fourth in the smartphone rankings, taking 4.9 percent of shipments.