27 January 2012

Year-on-year handset shipment growth of 11% in Q4 takes 2011 to 1.55 billion units

Despite continued macroeconomic difficulties in major markets like Western Europe, global handset shipments grew a “reasonable” 11% year-on-year in fourth-quarter 2011, from 400.1 million units a year ago to 445 million units, according to the latest market research report from the Strategy Analytics’ Wireless Device Strategies (WDS) service. This brought full-year shipments to 1.55 billion (up 14% on 2010’s 1.36 billion).

In Q4/2011, smartphone specialist Apple was the star performer, shipping 37 million iPhones (up from just 16.2 million a year ago) and capturing a record 8.3% market share (more than double its 4% in Q4/2010). “Apple’s growth was fueled by intense demand for its refreshed iPhone 4S, as well as the availability of three generations of iPhones at a variety of price points at operators like AT&T in the USA,” notes Strategy Analytics’ associate director Alex Spektor. For full-year 2011, Apple shipped 93 million handsets, nearly doubling 2010’s 47.5 million.

Table: Handset vendor shipments and market share in Q4/2011.

Nokia’s handset shipments in Q4/2011 were down 8% year-on-year, from 123.7 million to 113.5 million units (cutting its market share from 30.9% to 25.5%). “Volumes were buoyed by the sales of Nokia’s low-end dual-SIM models in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, but were a little soft overall, as initial shipments of Microsoft Lumia phones could not offset declining Symbian sales,” says Strategy Analytics’ executive director Neil Mawston. “Hot on Nokia’s heels, second-ranked Samsung captured 21.3% share [up from 20.2% in Q4/2010], with shipments of 95 million units [up from 80.7 million in Q4/2010]. Samsung’s 18% annual growth was fueled by robust shipments of its broad Galaxy-branded 3G portfolio, headlined by the Galaxy S2 superphone,” he adds.

“Currently in just its fifth year of participation in the handset market, Apple is on track to ship well over 100 million units during 2012,” reckons Strategy Analytics’ director Tom Kang. “China is becoming a key market for Apple this year, and we expect Apple’s share to grow rapidly in 2012, despite countless copycat rivals.”

Tags: Mobile handset shipments

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