News

10 November 2010

 

Smartphone market grows 89.5% year-on-year in Q3 as new devices launch

In third-quarter 2010, the smartphone market reached a new milestone, with the leading vendors posting double- or even triple-digit year-on-year growth. According to the Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker of International Data Corp (IDC), vendors shipped a total of 81.1 million units, up 89.5% on 42.8 million in Q3/2009. For the first three quarters of 2010, vendors shipped a total of 200.6 million units, up 67.6% on the 119.6 million in the first three quarters of 2009.

“That the smartphone market has grown nearly 90% from last year and more than six times the overall mobile phone market indicates strong demand worldwide and vendors' collective ability to meet that demand,” says Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC’s Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team. “Increasingly, users look to smartphones as their next devices, while carriers have broadened selection and offered generous subsidies. To keep up with demand, vendors’ plans to emphasize smartphones in their portfolios have resulted in sharp growth, as evidenced by Motorola, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. We expect more vendors to do the same,” he adds.

“The other important development during the quarter was how vendors are seeding the market for future growth,” says Llamas. “BlackBerry, iPhone, Microsoft, and Symbian all announced or launched refreshed operating systems, with each one providing an improved user experience over its predecessor. While these new operating systems initially appear on high-end devices at launch, they provide a glimpse of what the broader smartphone market will look like next year as the OS finds its way into more devices in the market.”

By the end of 2010, IDC expects that more than 20% of all devices shipped to partners worldwide will be converged mobile devices (the first time that this has occurred), up from 15% in 2009.

Top five mobile phone vendors

Nokia led all vendors in the smartphone market, posting solid year-on-year growth and launching the C7 and its first Symbian^3 device (the N8). Despite this, Nokia’s average selling prices (ASPs) trended down and its market share continued to shrink as competition in the smartphone market ramped up. Plans to release a MeeGo-powered device in 2011 are still on track, but will take place without director Ari Jaaksi, who has become senior VP of webOS at HP.

Apple marked a new milestone in iPhone shipments, enough to take the number 2 ranking. Q3 is typically Apple’s highest-volume quarter, and Q3/10 was no exception. Consumers who did not get their iPhone 4 at the end of June were rewarded for their patience, and even the much-hyped ‘Antennagate’ did little to dampen demand, as the firm moved swiftly to provide solutions.

Research In Motion, despite reaching record shipments in a single quarter, fell to third place. Still, the BlackBerry vendor maintained leadership in North America while growing its presence within key emerging markets with its BlackBerry Curve 8520. The firm also unveiled the Torch 9800, its first device running on the BlackBerry 6.0 operating system. This also marked the firm's first device featuring both touchscreen and QWERTY input.

Samsung posted the highest year-on-year change of all the leading smartphone vendors, based on the worldwide launch of its Galaxy S Android-powered smartphones and the continued popularity of its Wave smartphones. Although these devices directly address the high end of the smartphone market, Samsung is poised to ship mass-market smartphones. Moreover, the firm will be one of the first vendors to ship a Windows Phone 7 device. By the end of the year, Samsung aims to ship 10 million units for the quarter.

HTC posted triple-digit year-on-year growth on the strength of its Android-powered smartphones. The firm highlighted its global commercialization capability, culture of innovation, and brand awareness as key assets during the quarter, and broadened its device selection to include the Desire and G2. Now that HTC has five Windows Phone 7 devices for launch during Q4/10, the firm aims to ship 9 million units for the quarter.

Top five smartphone vendors, shipments and market share, Q3/2010 (in millions).
Vendor	Q3/10 shipments	Share			Q3/09 shipments		Share		Year-on-year change
Nokia	26.5	32.7%			16.4		38.3%		61.6%
Apple	14.1	17.4%			7.4		17.3%		90.5%
RIM	12.4	15.3%			8.5		19.9%		45.9%
Samsung	7.2	8.9%			1.3		3.0%		453.8%
HTC	5.8	7.2%			2.1		4.9%		176.2%
Others	15.1	18.6%			7.1		16.6%		112.7%
Total	81.1		100.0%	42.8			100.0%		89.5%

 

See related items:

Smartphone shipments grow 78% year-on-year to 77 million in Q3

Search: Smartphone market

Visit: www.idc.com

For more: Latest issue of Semiconductor Today