Global mobile phone sales grew by 0.1 percent year-year to 308.9 million units in the third quarter of this year with smartphones growing 12.8 percent to 41.07 million, according to Gartner. Four the fourth quarter, Gartner expects year-on-year growth driven by new mobile devices that will reach the market in time for Christmas sales. Other findings include that grey-market sales are no longer limited to China, as all manufacturers have to compete with grey-market players as they expand into emerging markets in Asia/Pacific, Eastern Europe, The Middle East and Latin America. Nokia's market share declined 1.5 percentage points year-on-year due in part to component shortages that may continue into the fourth quarter, while its quarterly shipments decreased to 113.4 million. Samsung saw its market share grow by 2.5 percent to 19.6 percent with 60.63 million shipped devices compared with 52.9 million shipped phones in the third quarter of 2008. LG saw its market share grow to 10.3 percent with 31.9 million shipments compared to 7.8 percent and 24.07 million shipments in Q3 2008 and Motorola saw its market share drop from 8 percent to 4.5 percent while shipments decreased from 24.63 million to 13.9 million. Sony Ericsson sales continued to deteriorate to 13.4 million shipments from 24.84 million in Q3 2008 and its market share dropped by 3.8 percentage points to 4.3 percent.
Nokia’s share of the worldwide smartphone market reached an all time low in the third quarter at 39.3 percent, compared with 45 percent in the second quarter of this year. This decline caused Symbian to lose ground too, while Research In Motion reached 20.8 percent share, its highest yet with 8.52 million shipments driven by the Curve 8900 in Europe and the Tour and Storm 2 with Verizon Wireless in the US. Apple’s worldwide smartphone share reached 17.1 percent as iPhone sales totalled 7.04 million units in the third quarter. In the smartphone operating system (OS) market, Android picked up momentum but with only a handful of Android devices available, its share remained modest at 3.5 percent. Windows Mobile 6.5 only became available in October, too late to have an impact on the third quarter, so sales of Windows-based smartphones saw another decline.
