Worldwide sales of smartphones exceeded the 1 billion milestone for the first time in 2014 after a record fourth quarter that saw sales to end users increase 29.9 percent year on year to reach 367.5 million units, according to Gartner. In 2014 as a whole, sales of smartphones to end users came to 1.2 billion units, up 28.4 percent from 2013, and represented two-thirds of global mobile phone sales of 1.9 billion. The final quarter of the year was also significant in that it saw Samsung lose its top position as the leading smartphone manufacturer for the first time since 2011. Apple sold a total of 74.8 million iPhones in the last three months of the year compared to Samsung’s total smartphone sales of 73.0 million, said Gartner. The Korean manufacturer lost nearly 10 percentage points in market share in 2014, falling from 29.5 percent in the final quarter of 2013 to 19.9 percent in Q4 2014, while Apple increased its share from 17.8 percent to 20.4 percent thanks above all to strong iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sales.
The Chinese vendors Lenovo, Huawei and Xiaomi all improved their sales numbers in the fourth quarter, with Lenovo selling 24.4 million handsets for a 6.6 percent market share, followed by Huawei with 21.0 million and a 5.7 percent market share, and Xiami more than tripling the number of units it sold between Q4 2013 and Q4 2014 to reach a figure of 18.6 million and 5.1 percent of the smartphone market.
In the smartphone OS market, Android continued to increase its market share with a rise of 2.2 percent in 2014 to 80.7 percent. Chinese and other smaller players drove Android's performance in 2014, while iOS remained stable at 15.4 percent of the market compared to 15.5 percent in Q4 2013. Windows Phone's performance dipped to 2.8 percent from 3.2 percent in the year-earlier quarter but it recorded strong results in some markets in Europe, as well as in the business segment, said Gartner.
