According to a new report on the mobile phone industry by research firm IDC, the first quarter of 2013 marks the first time that there are more smartphones being shipped worldwide than feature phones with Apple and Samsung at the forefront.
Of the approximately 418.6 million mobile phones that were shipped for the first quarter of 2013, manufacturers shipped a little over 216 million smartphones worldwide (51.6%) as compared with 189 million ‘dumb’ or regular cellphones.
Samsung is still enjoying the position that they held at the end of 2012 as the undisputed leader of the cell phone market, having shipped over 70 million units. Not only that, but Samsung shipped more units at the end of the first quarter of 2013 then the next for vendors combined, including smartphones and feature phones.
While Samsung is enjoying a resurgence in the cellphone industry, Nokia is slowly seeing their market share shrink, and their absence from the smartphone charts indicates that Nokia could be in for difficult times which would also bode poorly for Microsoft who was hoping that their partnership with Nokia would help their Windows o/s in the mobile market.
More analysis of the statistics can be found in the report itself.
Iconic Mind 