Phone
Mobile handset vendors shipped 324 million units in the three months through December, London-based analyst Neil Mawston said in a report.
The industry is benefiting from higher consumer spending and demand for devices that can surf the Web. Apple, the maker of the iPhone, increased smartphone shipments in the fourth quarter to 8.7 million units from 4.4 million units a year earlier, with gains in Europe and Asia. In the first quarter, vendors may ship 265 million units, a gain of 8 percent.
“Apple is taking market share partly from Motorola in the U.S., and a little bit from Nokia in the U.K. and France, and a little bit from Japanese vendors in Japan,” Mawston said in an interview. The Cupertino, California-based companys share of the global smartphone market increased eightfold in a year and a half, he said.
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and LG Electronics Inc. both broke their fourth-quarter shipment records and jointly accounted for about a third of the overall handset market, the researcher said. Nokia Oyj increased fourth-quarter handset shipments by 12 percent on growth in Asia and Africa and remained in the lead with a 39.1 percent share of all shipments. Motorola Inc. had its worst quarter since the beginning of 2001.
iPhone Sales
France, where three carriers are selling the iPhone, has become Apples biggest handset market in Western Europe, while Japan is its biggest market in Asia, Mawston said, adding that Korea is also growing fast. Germanys Deutsche Telekom AG hasnt pushed the iPhone as hard as other carriers, preferring to focus on Nokia and Samsung in marketing, Mawston said.
Motorola, whose shipments slid 38 percent to 12 million handsets in the fourth quarter, and Sony Ericsson, whose shipments dropped 40 percent to 14.6 million units, “have been the highest-profile casualties of the handset recession, each shedding 4 to 5 points of global market share over the past 18 months,” Strategy Analytics said.
In 2009, total shipments to carriers and retailers slipped 4 percent to 1.13 billion units because of the economic slowdown, the researcher said.
Research in Motion Ltd., maker of the BlackBerry, increased shipments about 40 percent in the quarter, driven by growth outside North America, according to Strategy Analytics. Nokia shipped 38 percent more smartphones as it introduced new touchscreen display models.
“Nokia has outperformed in smartphones, but longer-term challenges still remain, including below-average share of the high-growth touchscreen market and a tiny presence in the influential U.S. market,” Mawston said. The Finnish company is strongest in China because of its early investments in distribution networks, he said.