The iPhone puts Apple in Gartner's Top 10 worldwide mobile phone sales. Worldwide mobile phone sales reached 1.15 billion units in 2007 with three new companies in the Top 10.“Emerging markets, especially China and India, provided much of the growth as many people bought their first phone,” says Carolina Milanesi, Research Director for mobile devices at Gartner. “In mature markets, such as Japan and W. Europe, consumers’ appetite for feature-laden phones was met with new models packed with TV tuners, global positioning satellite (GPS) functions, touch screens and high-resolution cameras.”
“…The mature Western Europe and North America markets are driven by operator contract terms and replacement cycles and will account for just 30 per cent of the global mobile devices market in 2008.”
Table 1Worldwide Mobile Terminal Sales to End-Users in 2007 (Thousands of Units)
Company | 2007 Sales | 2007 Market Share (%) | 2006 Sales | 2006 Market Share (%) |
Nokia | 435,453.1 | 37.8 | 344,915.9 | 34.8 |
Motorola | 164,307.0 | 14.3 | 209,250.9 | 21.1 |
Samsung | 154,540.7 | 13.4 | 116,480.1 | 11.8 |
Sony Ericsson | 101,358.4 | 8.8 | 73,641.6 | 7.4 |
LG | 78,576.3 | 6.8 | 61,986.0 | 6.3 |
Others | 218,604.3 | 18.9 | 184,588.0 | 18.6 |
TOTAL | 1,152,839.8 | 100.0 | 990,862.5 | 100.0 |
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Note* This table includes iDEN shipments, but excludes ODM to OEM shipments.
Source: Gartner (February 2008)
Table 2
Worldwide Mobile Terminal Sales to End Users in 4Q07 (000s of Units)
Company | 4Q07 Sales | 4Q07 Market Share (%) | 4Q06 Sales | 4Q06 Market Share (%) |
Nokia | 133,194.4 | 40.4 | 102,791.8 | 36.2 |
Samsung | 44,353.1 | 13.4 | 32,011.3 | 11.3 |
Motorola | 39,291.0 | 11.9 | 61,034.4 | 21.5 |
Sony Ericsson | 29,848.8 | 9.0 | 25,666.9 | 9.0 |
LG | 23,545.0 | 7.1 | 17,833.2 | 6.3 |
Others | 59,822.4 | 18.2 | 44,886.7 | 15.7 |
TOTAL | 330,054.7 | 100.0 | 284,224.3 | 100.0 |
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Note* This table includes iDEN shipments, but excludes ODM to OEM shipments.
Source: Gartner (February 2008)
“The market saw three new entrants into the Top 10 in Q4 2007. These vendors included RIM, ZTE and Apple. “On one hand, we have aggressive pricing and a focus on emerging markets (ZTE), and on the other, RIM with targeted functions and Apple with brand and design,” says Ms Milanesi.
Sales in the Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa region remained strong in Q4 2007 and reached 61.8 million units. Mobile operators continued to add new subscribers to their networks, especially in Africa where countries such as Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria and So. Africa saw healthy net new additions.
In Q4 2007, mobile phone sales in Western Europe totaled 55 million units, up 2% from same quarter in 2006. Features such as music players, GPS and cameras proved to be significant attractions. In the same quarter, operators in Germany, UK and France introduced Apple's iPhone to the market.
Although sales have been small, this iconic device renewed consumers' interest in high-end phones, which in most Western European markets are still heavily subsidised by operators, according to Gartner.