Motorola, HTC, RIM Missing from Smartphone Top 5: IDC
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Nokia, Samsung, LG, ZTE and Apple earned places in IDC's 2010 list of top-five phone vendors. Notably absent were Motorola, BlackBerry-maker RIM and HTC.
Nokia, Samsung, LG Electronics, ZTE and Apple all earned the distinction of being the top five smartphone vendors during the fourth quarter of 2010 and the year on whole, IDC reported Jan. 27. Notably absent from the list were Motorola, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion and HTC, each of which made the quarterly list a year ago.
With smartphone sales pushing to new highs, and aggressively
affecting the overall mobile phone market, even the most established brands are
now fighting for top billing.
"Change-up among the number four and five vendors could be a
regular occurrence this year," Ramon Llamas, IDC senior
research analyst,
said in a statement. "Motorola, Research In Motion and Sony Ericsson, all
vendors with a tight focus on the fast-growing smartphone market who had ranked
among the top five worldwide vendors during 2010 are well within striking
distance to move back into the top-five list."
Thanks to strong smartphone sales - which was boosted
by a strengthening economy and increasing numbers of affordable options - the
worldwide mobile market reach a new quarterly high of 401.4 million units, up
17.9 percent from a year ago. By year's end, vendors shipped a cumulative 1.39
billion units in 2010, which was up 18.5 percent form the 1.17 billion units
shipped during 2009.
"Feature phone users looking to do
more with their devices will flock to smartphones in the years to come,"
said Llamas. "This trend will help drive the smartphone sub-market to grow
43.7 percent year over year in 2011."
Though it dipped 2.4 percent year
over year, Nokia remained the top-shipping vendor, shipping 123.7 million units
during the quarter. Over the whole of 2010,
however, its shipments were up 4.9 percent, on shipments of 453 million units,
up from the 431.8 million units during 2009. Nokia attributed its quarterly
slip to the intense competitive environment it faced, though it managed to
increase its smartphone volume during the quarter by 38 percent. IDC added,
however, that Nokia's average selling price per phone fell by 16 percent on a
year-over-year basis.
Coming up over Nokia's shoulder was the fast-moving Samsung,
which sold 80.7 million units during the quarter and 280.2 million during the
year.
"Samsung reached a new
milestone in 4Q10, pushing through the 80 million unit threshold for the first
time in the company's history and improving its profit margins for the second
straight quarter," reported IDC. "Driving shipment volumes was the continued
success of its Galaxy S smartphones, of which the company sold nearly 10
million units worldwide for the year."
Helping the company in emerging
markets, IDC added, were strong sales of its mass-market touch-screen phones
- which
it recently expanded by four.
LG also passed a milestone during
the quarter, passing 30 million units mark for a total of 30.6 million units.
Its yearly total hit 116.7 million units, causing IDC to note that its
"smartphone strategy is paying off."
LG sold more than a million
Optimus One smartphones in the device's first month of availability, and two
new versions - the Optimus 2X and Optimus Black - will be arriving
later this year. Still, said IDC, feature phones dominated its sales, and its
"again portfolio" and lower prices leave the company "vulnerable to the
competition."
Finishing just ahead of Apple was
lesser-known Chinese brand ZTE, which grabbed fourth place with sales of 16.8
million units during the quarter and 51.8 million for the year. While
historically ZTE has concentrated on entry-level mid-range phones, "some of its
recent success is directly attributable to its rapidly expanding smartphone
line," wrote IDC, "such as the Android-based Blade and Racer devices."
Despite a record quarter, Apple
managed to slip to the fifth position, on shipments of 16.2 million units during
the quarter and 47.5 million units during 2010. As Apple executives noted
during the company's most recent earnings call, the iPhone maker could have
sold even more devices had it been able to make them. With a CDMA version of
the iPhone set to launch on the Verizon Wireless network Feb. 10, however,
Apple COO Tim Cook said the company was "working around the clock to build
more."
"Mobile phone users are eager to swap out older devices for
ones that handle data as well as voice, which is driving growth and replacement
cycles," said IDC Senior Research Analyst Kevin Restivo,
adding, as he has in earlier reports, that the mobile phone market "has the
wind behind its sales."
