Gartner: Q1, 2013 Mobile Phone and Smartphone Market shares

Gartner’s Q1, 2013 mobile phone and smartphone shipment numbers provide the same set of observations

1. The total mobile phone shipment numbers have been stagnant YoY (425.8 million Q1, 2013 versus 422 million Q1, 2012) …
2. …. Bogged by 22% decline in feature phone shipments (215.7 million Q1, 2013 versus 275 million Q1, 2012)…
3. …. And Buoyed by 43% increase in the smartphone shipments (210 million Q1, 2013 versus 147 million Q1, 2012)!

4. Smartphone sales accounted for 49.3 percent of sales of mobile phones worldwide in the first quarter, up 34.8 percent year-on-year.
5. Only the Asia/Pacific region contributed to mobile phone sales across the globe, with a 6.4 percent increase year-on-year. More than 226 million mobile phones were sold to end users in Asia/Pacific in the first quarter of 2013, which helped the region increase its share of global mobile phones to 53.1 percent year-on-year. China saw its mobile phone sales increase 7.5 percent in the first quarter of 2013, and its sales represented 25.7 percent of global mobile phone sales, up nearly 2 percentage points year-on-year.

6. Samsung rules the smartphone roost growing by 51% YoY. In Fact, Samsung presence in Smartphone segment is so overwhelming that its sales and market shares are almost equivalent of its next 4 competitors put together (Apple, LG, Huawei, ZTE)
7. Apple, is estimated to have secured 18.2 percent of global marketshare, a drop of 4.3 percentage points. Apple’s redemption has been the Chinese market with the lower price of the iPhone 4 making China a key revenue generator for the tech giant. However, with no new products due from the Apple stable until the fall, the next quarter may drag Apple’s market shares significantly downward.

8. In terms of operating systems, Android continues to race ahead of rival systems, claiming 74.4 percent of global marketshare. 156.1 million smartphones running Google’s operating system were sold in the first quarter, whereas Apple’s iOS claimed an 18.2 percent slice of the market with iPhone sales. With new OSs coming to market such as Windows,Tizen, Firefox and Mozila, one can expect some market share to be eroded, but not enough to question Android’s volume leadership.

Gartner: Q4, 2012 Mobile Phone and Smartphone Market shares

Long time back, i had written a blog on the subject of smartphones becoming the key handheld at the cost of feature phones. If the Gartner 2012 numbers are to be considered, the saturation point for feature phones has been reached and the 2012 feature phones numbers – have been on a 1.66% decline as against 2011.

Incidentally, i see another trend – that of smaller players/ white-labelled OEMs- and a fragmented market emerging – a far cry from the Nokia and Samsung dominance days. The rise of Android is but actually a testimony to this trend with the exception of Samsung. With no malevolence to Samsung – it does seem to me that Samsung is holding on to a untenable position in shares in mobile devices with the white labeled OEMs on the prowl.

While Apple will still hold on to the smartphone ground (because of its ability to leverage hardware, software , services and experience), Samsung doesnot hold that ace with Android. This inspite of the fact that Samsung Galaxy series was the first high end Android that has challenged and now dethroned technology leadership of the iPhone.

The end result looks like an Android dominated market, though there could be a case of Android fatigue setting in with the audiences. However with the low end $50 smartphones on Android’s the numbers for Android will continue to add up especially in APAC and African markets. Thus Android is expected to still rule the volumes game on smartphones. It would be interesting to see how Windows and Blackberry go after Android – but the key still remains that – Android is the undisputed choice in smartphones in the fastest growing markets across the world. Windows and Blackberry will take time reversing this trend.

Gartner: Q3, 2012 Mobile Phone and Smartphone Market shares

• Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users reached almost 428 million units in the third quarter of 2012, a 3.1 percent decline from the third quarter of 2011.
• However compatred to Q2, 2012, the market has grown by 2.3% propelled by the growth of smartphones which added 15.6 million units to its Q2, 2012 number

• Smartphone sales accounted for 39.6 percent of total mobile phone sales, as smartphone sales increased 46.9 percent from the third quarter of 2011.
• Smartphones continued to fuel sales of mobile phones worldwide with sales rising to 169.2 million units in the third quarter of 2012.
• The smartphone market was dominated by Apple and Samsung. Both vendors together controlled 46.5 percent of smartphone market leaving a handful of vendors fighting over a distant third spot.
• In the smartphone market, Android continued to increase its market share, up 19.9 percentage points in the third quarter of 2012.
• Although RIM lost market share, it climbed to the No. 3 position as Symbian is nearing the end of its lifecycle. Channel destocking in preparation of new device launches for RIM, resulted into (lower than usual) 8.9 million sales to end users in the third quarter of 2012.
• With the launch of iPhone 5, Gartner analysts expect iOS share will grow strongly in the fourth quarter of 2012 because users held on to their replacements in many markets ahead of the iPhone 5 wider roll out. Windows Phone’s share weakened quarter-on-quarter as the Windows Phone 8 launch dampened demand of Windows Phone 7 devices.

All figures as per gartner.com

PC Sales in India – Q2 2012 (Gartner)

India PC market registers 17% growth in Q2, 2012 over Q2, 2011. The combined desk-based and mobile PC market in India totalled nearly 2.9 million units in the second quarter of 2012. Consumer buying accounted for 50 percent of total PC sales in the second quarter of 2012. Consumer PC sales grew 24 percent sequentially, which emphasizes the fact that media tablets are not yet cannibalizing the PC market in India like in the West. Consumer growth is being primarily being driven by entry level products. Computer makers such as HP, Lenovo, Asus and Samsung registered more than 50 percent growth in the consumer segment. Ultrabooks are still finding it difficult to penetrate the market. However, with the availability of the new Intel processor and declining price points, adoption of Ultrabooks would increase in coming quarters.

Laptops, which grew 54 percent compared to the second quarter of 2011, helped drive overall market growth. White boxes (including parallel import), which accounted for 45 percent of the overall desktop market, declined 18 percent in the second quarter of 2012 in comparison to the second quarter of 2011. The launch of Windows8 will impact the category in terms of certain vendors who will GTM the Windows8 first.

Lenovo has swung from a No.4 position in 2011 to No.1 position in 2012 basis a large TamilNadu govt order for the ELCOT project. On the other hand, Dell’s market share reduced by more than a fifth to 12.9% as compared to 16.7% in Q2 2011.

With Diwali coming up in November, the PC market is expected to continue showing momentum in the near future. Gartner believes that gifting during festivals along with subsequent shipments for the ELCOT deal will lead to further growth in the market. The study also reports a 25% growth in consumer purchases, which amounted to 50% of total PC shipments in Q2 2012.

From a long term perspective, it is unclear how the PC market will shape up when the average Indian turns to tablet as the primary computing device. While tablets have been eating into PC shipments – that hasn’t happened yet in India. The iPad posses less of a threat to PCs in the Indian market at least for now, because of its hefty price tag.

Gartner: Q2, 2012 Mobile Phone and Smartphone Market shares

Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users reached 419 million units in the second quarter of 2012, a 2.3 percent decline from the second quarter of 2011, according to Gartner. Demand of feature phones continued to decline, significantly weakening the overall mobile phone market

Demand slowed further in the second quarter of 2012. The challenging economic environment and users postponing upgrades to take advantage of high-profile device launches and promotions available later in the year slowed demand across markets.

Smartphone sales accounted for 36.7 percent of total mobile phone sales and grew 42.7 percent in the second quarter of 2012.

Samsung and Apple continued to dominate the smartphone market, together taking about half the market share, and widening the gap to other manufacturers. No other smartphone vendors had share close to 10 percent.

In the race to be top smartphone manufacturer in 2012, Samsung has consistently increased its lead over Apple, and its open OS market share increased to one-and-a-half times that of Apple in the second quarter of 2012.

In the smartphone OS market, Android extended its lead with an increase of 20.7 percentage points in market share in the second quarter of 2012. While Apple’s iOS market share slightly grew year over year (0.6 percent), it declined 3.7 percentage points quarter on quarter, as users postponed their upgrade decisions in most markets ahead of the upcoming launch of the iPhone 5.

India’s enterprise software market (2012 thru 2016) – Gartner

Despite challenging economic conditions, the increasing globalization of the Indian economy is leading to a growing need for modern software with the latest features and improved functionality – none so more as with Enterprise in India. With Indian enterprises continuing to embrace IT to improve productivity and drive growth, penetration of ICT infrastructure has been growing rapidly during the past decade. The primary drivers of growth have been domestic demand, the growing maturity of users and incremental enhancements in the technology. A combination of high domestic demand, presence of global vendors and entry of new small vendors with innovative products have made the overall ecosystem apt for robust growth.

 

Gartner expects the enterprise software market in India to grow at 13% in 2012, and revenue will cross $$3.22 billion in 2012. India’s enterprise software market is forecast to maintain its strong performance, with an estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.6 per cent from 2009 to 2016 – the third highest growth rate in the world.

In 2012, India will be the fourth largest enterprise software market in Asia/Pacific. The country is forecast to account for 11 per cent of the region’s total revenue of $29.33 billion USD for Asia/Pacific this year, the equivalent to 1.15 per cent of the total worldwide software of market share of $280 billion USD billion.By 2016, India’s share of the software market in Asia/Pacific is expected to reach 12.1 per cent, representing $5.4 billion in revenue, or 1.5 per cent of total worldwide software market revenue of $361 billion. In comparison to other countries in the Asia/Pacific region, such as China (with 27 per cent share of regional spending in 2011), the software market in India is still relatively small and evolving.

End users in Asia/Pacific are expecting to increase their spending on application and infrastructure software, with China and India being the most optimistic and leading the way for budget increases, followed closely by Malaysia and South Korea. The high intention to increase budgets in India is expected because of the rapidly growing economy, globalization of operations, and ongoing investment in India as a customer service-related outsourcing destination. Optimism regarding spending within Indian organizations reflects confidence in India’s regional economic performance, as well as the need to adopt better technology to effectively compete in a tougher global environment.

Gartner: Q1, 2012 Mobile Phone and Smartphone Market shares

Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users reached 419.1 million units in the first quarter of 2012, a 2 per cent decline from the first quarter of 2011, according to Gartner, Inc. This is the first time since the second quarter of 2009 that the market exhibited a decline. The slow down in the first quarter was attributed to a low demand in Asia Pacific in view of generally less exciting product launches.

Samsung became the world’s top mobile handset vendor during the quarter, displacing Nokia which had held the No. 1 spot since 1998. Samsung took back the world’s No. 1 smartphone position from Apple, selling 38 million smartphones worldwide. In addition, Samsung’s Android-based smartphone sales in the first quarter of 2012 represented more than 40 percent of Android-based smartphone sales worldwide; no other vendors achieved more than a 10 percent share of the market.

Sales of smartphones continued to drive mobile device market growth, reaching 144.4 million units in the first quarter of 2012, up 44.7 percent year-over-year. This quarter also saw the top two smartphone vendors, Apple and Samsung, raising their combined share to 49.3 percent, up from 29.3 percent in the first quarter of 2011, and widening their lead over Nokia – which saw its smartphone market share drop to 9.2 percent. Nokia’s mobile handset sales reached 83.2 million units, a 22.7 percent decrease from the first quarter of 2011.

Android accounted for more than half of all smartphone sales (56.1 percent) in the first quarter of 2012. A very strong commoditization trend is setting in on the smartphone segment especially the ones based on Android OS. At the high end, hardware features coupled with applications and services are helping differentiation, but this is restricted to major players with intellectual property assets. However, in the mid to low-end segment, price is increasingly becoming the sole differentiator. This will only worsen with the entry of new players and the dominance of Chinese manufacturers, leading to increased competition, low profitability and scattered market share

The mobile phone market shares over the last 13 quarters are plotted above.  Interestingly, even while the market has grown in the last 13 quarters by 55% from 269.1 mln units in Q1 2009 to the present volumes, what explains Nokia’s loss in not an other incumbent but the rise of the “Others” category. One would associate Micromax, Karbonn, Spice, Lava and other local white labelled brands in this space. The irony is back in 2008, when Nokia was at its zenith, this threat was widely rubished by most of the high ups in Nokia as a passing fad.

The Tablet takeover

According to Gartner, the Tablet segment sales are going to increase from 68 million units in 2011 to 118 million units in 2012 registering a 98% increase in volumes. 2011 saw tablet shipments multiply by 3.5X over 2010. Furthermore, the segment will see growth at 60%+ CAGR for the next 5 years and gartner expects that the total number of tablet users will be in excess of 660 million by 2016.

Apple will be the key player and influencer in the segment, even while Amazon, Android and Windows build base and shall continue its leadership position well in 2015 albeit more smaller margins.

Presenting my first infographic build to emphasize the promise in the Tablet devices segment.

Gartner: Q4, 2011 Mobile Phone and Smartphone Market shares

Worldwide smartphone sales to end users soared to 149 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011, a 47.3 per cent increase from the fourth quarter of 2010. Total smartphone sales in 2011 reached 472 million units and accounted for 31 percent of all mobile devices sales, up 58 percent from 2010.

 Apple became the third-largest mobile phone vendor in the world, overtaking LG and the world’s top smartphone vendor, with a market share of 23.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, and the top smartphone vendor for 2011 as a whole, with a 19 percent market share.

LG, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Research In Motion (RIM) again recorded disappointing results as they struggled to improve volumes and profits significantly. These vendors were also exposed to a much stronger threat from the midrange and low end of the smartphone market as ZTE and Huawei continued to gain share during the quarter. 

Worldwide mobile device sales to end users totaled 476.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011, a 5.4 percent increase from the same period in 2010. In 2011 as a whole, end users bought 1.8 billion units, an 11.1 percent increase from 2010.

The pictures in Numbers: Indian Mobile Handset industry

Gartner release on the size and growth projections of Indian Mobile handset numbers:

Mobile handset sales in India, expected to grow an annual 8.5 percent and reach 231 million units in 2012
Annual Mobile handset sales in India to top 322 million by 2015
Smartphone sales 6 percent of the total device sales in Q2, 2011. Gartner expects to go up to 8 percent in 2012
Average selling price ASP for a mobile device sold in India is about $45
75% of the Mobile devices sold costing below $75

These set of projections amongst other things emphasize the growth of the smartphone segment in the mobile phone markets. Smartphones are projected to grow by 45% as against a total market growth of 9% Y-o-Y 2011-12.

The report also speaks about the waning klout of the Tier A brands to the local and Chinese brands such as G’Five, Micromax, Spice, Karbonn.Going forward in 2012, the big global brands will continue to face competition from local and Chinese brands as some of these brands are building capabilities to compete at a larger level covering broader consumer segments.