The global mobile phone market has grown by only 12.8% over the past year. This was influenced by the decline in smartphone sales in mature markets.
According to IDC, in the 3rd quarter of this year, vendors delivered 393.7 million devices, over the same period last year – 348.9 million. Nevertheless, the real figures were 9.3% higher than the forecast. This is almost the lowest growth rate in the last two years. Mature markets such as the USA and Western Europe showed the lowest results.
“Economic uncertainty and the expectation of the release of new products have forced many buyers to postpone the purchase of smartphones,” said Kevin Restivo, lead analyst at IDC. “Many were waiting, for example, for the iPhone 4S, which was released after the end of the quarter, or a series of BlackBerry 7-based phones from RIM, which were released at the very end of the quarter.”
The mobile market in Western Europe has slowed down as a result of lower demand for both smartphones and conventional mobile phones. The growth of the market was provided only by sales of devices based on Android of the average price category. As for the market of expensive smartphones, the expectation of the release of the iPhone 4S had a negative impact. The transition of Nokia phones from Symbian to Windows Phone as the main OS led to a kind of transition period and a decrease in smartphone sales. Although, in general, in Central Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Nokia sales have grown strongly due to sales of simple mobile phones. Smartphone sales continued to fall. HTC felt the best among smartphones, including in Russia. BlackBerry grew at the expense of the Middle East and Africa, but things were not going so well in Central and Eastern Europe.
In North America, the expectation of a new iPhone has allowed other companies to launch competing devices. Most of them are Android phones. This will allow this platform to become the leader of the smartphone market.