14 DAY TRIAL // A few weeks ago, we learned that Nokia has lost the top position on the smartphone market, when its smartphone sales for the second quarter of the year fell behind Apple's, but it seems that the decline was worse than originally expected.
South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung managed to sell more smartphones than Nokia as well, pushing the Finnish giant all the way to the third position on the market.
Nokia announced back in February that it would be moving to Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system, leaving the Symbian aside, and the move affected the company's sales more than expected, while helping rival vendors.
According to a recent report from Strategy Analytics, Samsung managed to sell a number of 19.2 million smartphones in the second quarter of the year, about two million and a half more than the 16.7 million units Nokia sold.
“Having become the first ever vendor to ship 100 million smartphones in a single year during 2010, long-time leader Nokia has slipped two places in our rankings in Q2 2011,” Tom Kang, director at Strategy Analytics, commented.
“The vendor’s 15 percent global smartphone market share is less than half of what it was just one year earlier, as the industry awaits Nokia’s pending transition to Windows Phone 7.”
Samsung, on the other hand, is enjoying increased sales in most markets around the world. Its smartphone shipments increased significantly year on year, helped by appealing new devices launched with Google's Android OS on board.
This brought Samsung closer to Apple, who sold a number of 20.3 million smartphones in the time frame, and suggested that it might not be too long before the company takes the leading position on the smartphone market.
“Samsung overtook Nokia to become the world’s second largest smartphone vendor in Q2 2011,” Neil Mawston, director at Strategy Analytics, stated.
Samsung’s shipments grew a huge 520 percent annually, for 17 percent global smartphone market share. Samsung’s Galaxy portfolio has proven popular, especially the high-tier S2 Android model.”
Overall, smartphone sales in the second quarter of the year reached 110 million units, marking a 76 percent increase when compared to the same period a year ago, the research firm notes.