Smartphones sales top feature phones

A smartphone is commonly defined as a device that has built-in applications and can connect to the internet

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Smartphone sales exceeded feature phone sales for the first time in the April-to-June period, according to research firm Gartner.

Worldwide mobile phone sales totalled 435 million units. Smartphone sales accounted for 225 million units, up 46.5% from the previous year.

Feature phones totalled 210 million units, down 21%.

The highest smartphone growth rates came from Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, the firm said.

"Smartphones accounted for 51.8% of mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013, resulting in smartphone sales surpassing feature phone sales for the first time," said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner.

However, a competing firm, IDC, said this milestone had already been reached in the first three months of 2013.

A smartphone is commonly defined as a device that has built-in applications and can connect to the internet. In contrast, feature phones tend to perform fewer functions and are priced more cheaply.

Analysts said the Gartner research was not surprising, given that consumers had increasingly been switching to smartphones that provided added features such as email, mobile applications and games.

Gartner said Samsung continued to be the top seller of smartphones globally, with its market share at 31.7%. It sold more than 71 million units of its smartphones in the April-to-June period.

Apple now controls 14.2% of the market, down from 18.8% in the same period a year ago, Gartner said. It sold about 31 million units.

LG Electronics, Lenovo and ZTE make up the rest of the top five. Lenovo, the world biggest PC-maker, has managed to gain a lot of market share very quickly with an aggressive push into the smartphone market.

Samsung was also top of the list for overall mobile phone sales, followed by Nokia, Apple, LG Electronics and ZTE.

Gartner said that in terms of operating systems, Google's Android was top, with 79% market share, followed by Apple's iOS with 14.2%. However, Microsoft overtook Blackberry for the first time to come in third place.

source:BBC News