Apple gained overall share as smartphones outsold feature phones for first time in 2013
Consumers' increasing desire for smartphones has been a boon for Apple as the company's share of the overall mobile phone market increased by nearly 10 percent in 2013, according to new data published Thursday.
Apple accounted for 8.3 percent of the 1.8 billion handsets sold worldwide last year, up from 7.5 percent of the market in 2012, as buyers snapped up a greater number of smartphones than feature phones for the first time ever in a full year. The numbers were revealed in market research firm Gartner's final analysis of 2013.
Rival Samsung -- which also makes feature phones -- gained 2.6 percent in the same period to finish with 24.6 percent of the market. Fellow South Korean manufacturer LG, Chinese firms Huawei, TCL, Lenovo, and Yulong, and Japanese giant Sony all posted gains between 0.3 percent and 1.6 percent though none account for more than 4 percent of the market individually.
Most of the gains appear to have come at the expense of new Microsoft subsidiary Nokia, which dropped 5.2 percent year-over-year and ended 2013 with a 13.9 percent share. Chinese equipment maker ZTE was the only other company in the top 10 to shed market share, dropping 0.6 percent to 3.3 percent.
While taking more of the overall mobile phone market, Cupertino, Calf.-based Apple did cede a portion of the smartphone market as the shift in buying habits increased the customer base in developing economies. Apple dropped from 19.1 percent in 2012 to 15.6 percent last year as Samsung, Huawei, LG and Lenovo all added between 0.8 percent and 1.2 percent.
"With Apple adding NTT DOCOMO in Japan for the first time in September 2013 and signing a deal with China Mobile during the quarter, we are already seeing an increased growth in the Japanese market and we should see the impact of the last deal in the first quarter of 2014," said Gartner principal research analyst Anshul Gupta.
Latin America led the Middle East and Africa, Asia/Pacific and Eastern Europe in smartphone sales growth for the fourth quarter of 2013, increasing by 96.1 percent. India booked the highest growth by a single nation with an explosive 166.8 percent increase, while China saw sales grow by 86.3 percent in the year.
All three of the top-performing markets have been hailed as important opportunities for Apple.
The company signed a landmark distribution agreement with China Mobile, the world's largest wireless carrier, at the end of last year. In addition, Apple is said to have prepared a major push into India by offering discounts and payment plans, and the company is believed to have restarted production of the low-cost iPhone 4 for India and Brazil, Latin America's largest market.
Apple accounted for 8.3 percent of the 1.8 billion handsets sold worldwide last year, up from 7.5 percent of the market in 2012, as buyers snapped up a greater number of smartphones than feature phones for the first time ever in a full year. The numbers were revealed in market research firm Gartner's final analysis of 2013.
Rival Samsung -- which also makes feature phones -- gained 2.6 percent in the same period to finish with 24.6 percent of the market. Fellow South Korean manufacturer LG, Chinese firms Huawei, TCL, Lenovo, and Yulong, and Japanese giant Sony all posted gains between 0.3 percent and 1.6 percent though none account for more than 4 percent of the market individually.
Most of the gains appear to have come at the expense of new Microsoft subsidiary Nokia, which dropped 5.2 percent year-over-year and ended 2013 with a 13.9 percent share. Chinese equipment maker ZTE was the only other company in the top 10 to shed market share, dropping 0.6 percent to 3.3 percent.
Smartphones accounted for 53.5% of the worldwide mobile phone market in 2013.
While taking more of the overall mobile phone market, Cupertino, Calf.-based Apple did cede a portion of the smartphone market as the shift in buying habits increased the customer base in developing economies. Apple dropped from 19.1 percent in 2012 to 15.6 percent last year as Samsung, Huawei, LG and Lenovo all added between 0.8 percent and 1.2 percent.
"With Apple adding NTT DOCOMO in Japan for the first time in September 2013 and signing a deal with China Mobile during the quarter, we are already seeing an increased growth in the Japanese market and we should see the impact of the last deal in the first quarter of 2014," said Gartner principal research analyst Anshul Gupta.
Latin America led the Middle East and Africa, Asia/Pacific and Eastern Europe in smartphone sales growth for the fourth quarter of 2013, increasing by 96.1 percent. India booked the highest growth by a single nation with an explosive 166.8 percent increase, while China saw sales grow by 86.3 percent in the year.
All three of the top-performing markets have been hailed as important opportunities for Apple.
The company signed a landmark distribution agreement with China Mobile, the world's largest wireless carrier, at the end of last year. In addition, Apple is said to have prepared a major push into India by offering discounts and payment plans, and the company is believed to have restarted production of the low-cost iPhone 4 for India and Brazil, Latin America's largest market.
Comments
It could be twice, total domination on the high end, with a bigger screen. How well, it will happen and Samsung won't have any trick left.
And stock price
Go Apple! In the end it is high and sustained profits that matter most. I wish that table had net profit on it too.
Exactly, Digi.
It also means, Apple has more $'s for R&D. Which means some cool stuff in the future.
Best!
Please, AI, cut it out with the continued errors where they matter. It really shouldn't be that difficult to get this stuf right, whether you're replacing Huddler with something else or not. You could simply read the article after it's been converted to the forum. You know, many don't visit the homepage; they go straight to the threads instead. And then missing a simple thing as a digit, 1 instead of 10, is a big deal.
This can only mean Apple is Doooomed. Tim better buy another $10 billion of stock back...
I bet the NYT headline will be "Apple fails to penetrate "non-smartphone market".
Stuff.
It(?)
Keep in mind the 3 largest guys in this market are being pummel by the market and the guys at the bottom who are showing small amounts of growth are looked on as new sweat hearts of Wall street..
Typical Wall Street it is all about market share but when you achieve that goal they reward you buy sticking your stock down and say you are now a target of the smaller cheaper guys.
To me, total handset marketshare is the only marketshare that makes sense. The "smartphone" marketshare hase become meaning less. As long as Apple in rising in that marketshare metric, it means they are progressing and can focus on developing the next thing. So all is good.
Two tricks left: more feature phones, and be willing to take razor thin profits to win over the cheap smartphone market. Come to think of it. Samsung is already winning in both.
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://www.idc.com.cn/about/press.jsp?id=Nzk4
And iPhone is a monster hit.
Please, AI, cut it out with the continued errors where they matter. It really shouldn't be that difficult to get this stuf right, whether you're replacing Huddler with something else or not. You could simply read the article after it's been converted to the forum. You know, many don't visit the homepage; they go straight to the threads instead. And then missing a simple thing as a digit, 1 instead of 10, is a big deal.
Yeah, and even with the correction (to "increased by nearly 10 per cent") they are wrong. It's a 10.67% increase. They do screw up percentages all the time.
They ( and lots of other people) also mix up "percentages" with "percentage points" all the time: while Apple's share increased 10.67% (or 0.8 percentage points), Samsung's share increased 2.6 percentage points (not 2.6% - it was actually up 10.57%, to put it in the same terms as they list Apple).
If accurate here's a report no one saw coming right now: China's smartphone market has recently slowed down, even dropping from the 3rd quarter to the 4th (94.8 million units down to 90.8). That's the first drop in three years.
They were waiting for improved iPhone availability.
And this numbers come from where? None, except Apple provides sales numbers
Once again, they don't. No one does. Sigh ...