Global mobile-phone shipments rose 17 percent year over year to 314.7 million units in the first quarter, buoyed by robust smartphone sales, according to Gartner analysts. Smartphone sales to end users soared 48.7 percent to 54.3 million units -- the strongest year-on-year increase since 2006.
Smartphones accounted for 17.3 percent of all mobile handset sales in the first quarter -- up from 13.6 percent in the same period last year. Apple's iPhones, Research In Motion's BlackBerry handsets, and smartphones based on Google's Android OS all proved to be big winners in the first three months of the year.
"The first quarter was Apple's strongest quarter yet, which placed the company in the No. 7 position with a 112.2 percent increase in mobile-device sales," noted Gartner Research Vice President Carolina Milanesi.
Android's U.S. Surge
During the first quarter, Android displaced Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform in the number-four global smartphone slot for the first time, Milanesi noted. Moreover, Android was the biggest winner in the U.S. market, where it displaced Apple's iPhone OS as the number-two smartphone platform by growing its market share by nearly 22 percentage points year over year to 26.6 percent.
"Android's momentum continued into the first quarter of 2010, particularly in North America, where sales of Android-based phones increased 707 percent year on year," Milanesi said.
BlackBerry sales reached 10.6 million units in the quarter -- a 45.9 percent year-on-year increase. "This quarter saw RIM, a pure smartphone player, make its debut in the top five mobile-device manufacturers, and saw Apple increase its market share by 1.2 percentage points," Milanesi said.
RIM's focus on its ecosystem strategy -- together with its tightly integrated control of store, OS and device -- played to RIM's strengths on a global basis during the first quarter, Milanesi noted. In the United States, however, RIM saw its share of the smartphone market decline 14 percent year over year, even as Apple's share rose four percentage points to 22.1 percent.
Industry observers note that RIM still needs to embrace touch capabilities in a big way to regain U.S. momentum. "In the consumer space, touch and a strong ecosystem are starting to become more and more important," Milanesi noted. RIM also needs "to improve its web-browsing experience," she added.
Nokia's Sliding Market Share
The Symbian OS long championed by Nokia remained the world's number-one smartphone OS during the quarter, but Symbian's share of the market was down 4.5 percentage points from a year earlier, Milanesi noted. Though Nokia remains weak in its high-end portfolio, Milanesi said the situation should improve with Nokia's release of the N8 and other devices in the fourth quarter.
"There are also devices such as the C5 and E5 that will help drive smartphones sales, but still in the mid-tier market," Milanesi said. "In the high end we will wait for Meego and then Symbian 4 next year."
Research firm iSuppli expects smartphone shipments to grow 35.5 percent this year, compared to 11.3 percent for the global mobile business overall. "Because of this, companies that are exclusively focused on this area, like RIM and Apple, have managed to move up to near the top tier of the china mobile phone business," said iSuppli Senior Analyst Tina Teng. "This shows that the smartphone is reshaping the competitive landscape of the wireless business."
Teng also noted that RIM is now poised to displace Sony Ericsson as the third-largest player in the global mobile-phone market. "It will be interesting to see how much more market share RIM and Apple can gain in 2010," Teng said.
