According to research firm Gartner, sales of smartphones have continued to grow despite a dip in worldwide phone sales during the third quarter.
Over 427 million phones were sold during the third quarter, which is 3 percent lesser than the same quarter a year ago, but slightly up from the 419 million devices shipped in the second quarter. Smartphone sales, meanwhile, have continued to grow as compared to feature phones. About 169 million smartphones were sold during the quarter, a hike of 47 percent.
Samsung, Nokia and Apple have maintained their top position in the market during the quarter. Nokia, however, saw a drop in a market share by more than 20 percent as compared to last year – a slump from 23.9 percent in third quarter last year to 19.2 percent in Q3 this year. Apple and Samsung saw a rise in their market shares, according to the Gartner report.
Other manufacturers such as ZTE, LG and Huawei saw a slight growth during the quarter, while BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion and Taiwanese phone maker HTC both saw a 30 percent decrease. RIM’s market share is currently around 2.1 percent, while HTC’s is 2 percent.
Motorola Mobility, now owned by Google, also saw a slump in sales. Its market share dipped from 2.5 percent to 2 percent this year.
Google’s Android retains the no. 1 spot among the mobile operating systems. The OS accounted for 72.4 percent of all smartphones sold in the quarter, up from 52.5 percent last year) followed by Apple’s iOS in a distant second place (13.9 percent). Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform increase its share from 1.5 percent of all smartphones last year to 2.4 percent in the current quarter.
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