Smartphone sales slow
More than 38 million smartphones were sold in the fourth quarter of 2008, just 3.7% up on the fourth quarter of 2007. This is according to IT analyst Gartner which said that the growth rate was the lowest to date.
Global sales of smartphones for 2008 reached 139.3 million devices, up 13.9% compared with 2007.
"After a strong third quarter with new product introductions, sequential growth slowed down again in the fourth quarter as fewer compelling new products and the worsened economic climate continued to make data plans associated with smartphones out of reach for most consumers," said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner. "In general in 2008, the focus from vendors and operators on increasing their smartphone portfolios remained very strong. Samsung, RIM, HTC and Apple saw their volumes and share increase during 2008, thanks to their ability to offer compelling device experiences and touch interfaces."
As a proportion of all mobile device sales, smartphones remained stable at 12% in the fourth quarter of 2008, from 11% in the fourth quarter of 2007. Samsung entered the top five vendors ranking for the first time (see Table 1), replacing Sharp. RIM recorded an increase in sales both sequentially and year-over-year, while Nokia’s volumes continued to fall.
Nokia maintained its top spot, but in the fourth quarter of 2008 its smartphone sales declined by 16.8% year-on-year. This also contributed to the overall weakness of the global smartphone segment in 4Q08, said Gartner.
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