Gartner: Smartphone sales exceed feature phones in Q2 2013, Android at the top

The figures for the second quarter of 2013 are almost all in and now it’s Gartner’s time to speak. Based on their findings, Gartner concludes that for the first time, smartphone sales have surpassed feature phone sales. And who else would be at top of the charts but the Android OS.

The total number of mobile phone sales to end users have increased by 3.6 percent, totaling 435 million units, since the second quarter of 2012. Of these, 225 million units are smartphones, which have gone up by 46.5 percent from the same period last year. Compared to this, feature phone sales have declined by 21 percent with only 210 million units sold. It’s a bit of a close match, but smartphones are clearly emerging as the winner, especially in Asia/Pacific, Latin America, and Eastern Europe where smartphone sales have had the highest growth rate.

In the smartphone OS race, Android still ranks the highest with 178 million Android smartphones sold and 79 percent of market share, a 15 percent increase compared to last year. On the other hand, iPhone sales dropped by 4 percent in the same period, with only 32 million units sold but still holds its place in second. In terms of vendors, Samsung is at the top of both smartphone sales and mobile phone sales, which includes features phones as well. Perhaps most interesting is Lenovo, who almost doubled its share from 2.8 percent to 4.7 percent, securing the fourth spot in smartphone sales following LG in third.

Some of you might remember IDC releasing a report a few months ago saying smartphones have exceeded feature phones for the first time as well. There is a subtle but important difference between these two. IDC only takes into consideration the number of units that are shipped by vendors while Gartner’s numbers are based on actual unit sales that end up in users’ hands. Either way, it’s definitely nice to see Android standing on top of it all.

SOURCE: Gartner