14 DAY TRIAL // Nokia has lost a lot of market share on the smartphone segment lately, especially after announcing plans to move to Windows Phone, but it seems that the company did manage to remain the top selling handset vendor in the world, a recent report from Strategy Analytics explains.
Nokia shipped a number of 106.6 million mobile devices in the third quarter of the ongoing year, which marks only a small drop from the 110.4 million it shipped in the same time frame a year ago.
The company was trailed by Samsung with 88 million units, up from 71.4 million a year ago, and LG with 21.1 million, marking a drop from the 28.4 million units it sold in the third quarter of the last year.
ZTE managed to outperform Apple in the time frame with 18.5 million shipped units, which pushed the Chinese phone maker to the fourth place on the mobile phone market. Apple shipped 17.1 million iPhones.
The overall mobile phone market reached 389.9 million devices in the three months ended September 2011, with Nokia maintaining its leading position courtesy of its 27.3 percent share (Samsung had 22.6 percent of the market).
“Nokia’s global handset shipments edged down 3 percent annually to 107 million units in Q3 2011,” Neil Mawston, director at Strategy Analytics, stated.
“Nokia’s strong sales of its entry-level dual-SIM models in emerging markets were counterbalanced by weak demand for its high-end Symbian phones in developed regions.”
He also says that Nokia's new Lumia smartphones, which are powered by Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system, should enable the company increase sales in the following months.
“The recent Microsoft Lumia announcements have come at a good time to help Nokia’s stagnant smartphone volumes,” Mawston continued.
“Hot on Nokia’s heels, second-ranked Samsung continued to grow and reached an all-time-high marketshare of 23 percent, fuelled by robust shipments of its high-end Galaxy S2 superphone.”
The mobile phone market went up 14.2 percent in the three-month period, Strategy Analytics also notes.