Global Smartphone Market Overview

Even though the global cell phone market remained stagnant for the third quarter of 2009, the smartphone segment continues to show strong year-over-year growth, according to a new research released by Gartner.

During the past quarter, a total of 308.9 million mobile handsets were shipped worldwide, representing a minimal increase of 0.1 percent from the same period last year. In the meantime, smartphone sales show a healthy surge of 12.8 percent with more than 41 million units sold, making smartphones the fastest-growing category within the whole industry.

Apple and Research In Motion are believed to be the driving force behind the upward movement, as both companies enjoyed nearly 50 percent year-on-year growth in unit sales. RIM, the no.2 smartphone maker, increased its smartphone market share significantly from 15.9 percent to 20.8 percent, posting its highest share yet. Following behind RIM, Apple also continues to gain momentum. With 7 million iPhone devices sold in the last quarter, the company’s smartphone market share has jumped from 12.9 percent to 17.1 percent.

Nokia is still the market leader with a 39.3 percent share of the market in Q3 2009, but its outlook is not very optimistic considering the drop from its 42.3 percent share in the year-ago quarter. HTC, the fourth, rose from 4.5 percent to 6.5 percent, while Samsung, the fifth, was up from 3 percent to 3.2 percent.

On the other hand, the research firm notes that for the rest of the year, it is important for handset manufacturers to "offer products with the features that consumers and operators are demanding most strongly". These features, like touchscreens, focus on user interface, applications and content ecosystems, are believed to be those that could bring advantages over other vendors while the smartphone market continues to mature.

As many new devices, including several Android smartphones, have arrived in time for the approaching holiday season, Gartner expects sales in the fourth quarter to show growth over last year’s figure. In other words, the global smartphone market shares of handset vendors are still prone to variations for the rest of the year.

Tags: iPhone Accessories, BlackBerry Accessories, Nokia Accessories, HTC Accessories, Samsung Accessories, LG Accessories, Motorola Accessories