Just few days back when Steve Jobs claimed to beat RIM in global mobile market share, it was all surprise for many of the mobile analyst as they failed to find any authenticated report behind such claim. Now the latest report from IDC, based on year’s third quarter mobile sales figures, provides a boost to his claim and authenticates Apple as fourth largest mobile phone vendor across the globe, beating RIM to fifth position.
As per the latest Report from IDC, a research firm, BlackBerry maker RIM has slipped to fifth position due to sharp decline in sales and controversies over the messaging security issues in few countries. Apple and RIM belong to the list of top 5 mobile vendors which has been dominated by LG Electronics. Samsung and Nokia are the other two companies who stand at second and third position respectively. For the first ever since 2004 Sony Ericsson has been bumped out of the list.
Apple has closed the gap of being a Leader in mobile market by growing popularity of iPhone. Going by the numbers, Apple emerges as market leader for the third quarter with an increase of 90.5 percent in phone shipment compare to same duration last year. The major impact on Apple’s sales came due launch of iPhone 4 which helped the company to sell more than 14 million phones in third quarter.
On the global level, overall mobile market has witnessed the growth of 14.6 percent,marking the fourth quarter in a row that’s seen double-digit growth. Total mobile phone shipments for the quarter reached 340.5 million units compared with 297.1 million a year ago.
The IDC reported strongly indicates that the establish future of smartphones. Companies who have smartphones in their catalog, are accelerating their growth..
“The entrance of Apple to the top 5 vendor ranking underscores the increased importance of smartphones to the overall market. Moreover, the mobile phone makers that are delivering popular smartphone models are among the fastest growing firms,” said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC. “Vendors that aren’t developing a strong portfolio of smartphones will be challenged to maintain and grow market share in the future.”
LG Electronics is the only exception of this and still leading the global mobile market despite of very few smartphones in their catalog. As a result company has faced a decline of about 10 percent in mobile phone sales last quarter. The report predicts a 55 percent increase in smartphone growth for the year in the worldwide market.
With the pace and figure Apple is growing, it would be interesting to see how long it will take for Apple to cover all 3 steps to stand intact on Top. Even if that is something which may take time, Nokia cross-over might be another milestone to for Apple. We are expecting Nokia is closely watching this trend.
