14 DAY TRIAL // Research firm Gartner has just released the results of its annual survey regarding mobile phones sales, which show a strong rise in smartphone sales, as well as mobile phones.
To no one’s surprise, Symbian is still in the lead with the most smartphones sold since Q3 2009, followed closely by Android and iOS devices.
According to the research study, worldwide mobile phone sales totaled 417 million units in Q3 2010, which is a 35% increase from Q3 2009.
Furthermore, smartphone sales grew 96% from Q3 2009. Also, the research company reported that 19.3% of overall mobile phone sales in the third quarter of 2010 were smartphones.
“This is the third consecutive double-digit increase in sales year-on-year, indicating that consumer demand is healthy,” said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.
“This quarter saw Apple and Android drive record smartphone sales. Apple's share of the smartphone market surpassed Research In Motion (RIM) in North America to put it second behind Android while Android volumes also grew rapidly making it the No. 2 operating system worldwide.”
Even though Symbian OS, is still in the lead with 36.6% of the smartphones market share, the operating system strongly supported by Nokia sees an 8% drop from 44.6% in Q3 2009.
Android smartphones and Apple's iOS devices came on second and third places with 25.5% and 16.7% of the market share. Both platforms registered record sales in Q3 2010.
The worldwide mobile phones market is still dominated by Nokia with 28.2% of the market share, followed by Samsung and LG with 17.2% and 6.6% respectively.
While the hierarchy remained the same, all three handset manufacturers registered considerable drops in market share compared with Q3 2009.
It's worth to mention that Apple managed to enter the top 5 handset manufacturers with 3.2% of the market share, surpassing RIM (2.9%) for the fourth place.
