Gartner has published a report according to which in the third quarter sales of mobile devices reached 440.5 million units, which is 5.6% more than a year ago.
Interestingly, simple phones were in particular demand, which are characterized by low cost and often offer support for two SIM cards (this is especially true in developing countries where several people use one phone).
Nevertheless, every fourth mobile device sold was a smartphone – this indicator has hardly changed over the past three months, increasing from 25 to 26%. Gartner analysts noted an increase in demand for smartphones in Russia and China – largely due to these countries, it was possible to get such large numbers.
In total, 115 million smartphones were sold, which is 42% more than in the third quarter of 2010, although 7% less than in the second quarter of this year. The decline in sales could be observed in Western Europe and the USA, where users postponed purchases in anticipation of the release of the new iPhone, planning to purchase it or one of the previous models, for which Apple traditionally lowers the price.
The largest seller of mobile phones remained the Finnish company Nokia, which accounted for 23.9%. If we take into account only smartphones, then Samsung was the first in the world, the success of which was brought by the popular Galaxy smartphones.
It is worth noting that, according to Gartner analysts, in the fourth quarter, which will be the holiday season, Apple will recoup and again outstrip its Korean counterpart.
As for mobile platforms, Android remains the first in the world. Its share has grown to 52.5%, although a year ago it was half as much. In second place, oddly enough, was Symbian with a share of 16.9%. This is followed by iOS with 15% (which is 1.6% less than last year), BlackBerry with 11% (a year ago – 15.4%) and Bada with 2.2% (in the 3rd quarter of 2010 – 1.1%). Microsoft Windows Phone closes the list of the best, whose share decreased by 1.2% over the year, reaching 1.5%.