The worldwide mobile phone market grew 1 percent year over year in the second quarter of 2012 to 406.0 million, according to estimates from IDC. Growth was led by smartphones, which were up 42.1 percent from a year earlier to shipments of 153.9 million units. Growth was slightly slower than IDC's earlier forecast of 43.1 percent, and the market researcher expects the economic slowdown could further impact sales this year. In terms of manufacturers, the handset market was dominated by Samsung and Apple in Q2. Samsung grew its share of the overall market to 24.1 percent from 18.8 percent a year ago and extended its lead in smartphones to 32.6 percent from 17.0. Apple's share of the smartphone market was down slightly, to 16.9 percent from 18.8 a year ago, and Nokia's share plunged to 6.6 percent from 15.4 percent a year earlier. Nokia remained second in the overall mobile phone market, with a share of 20.6 percent, while Apple was in third with 6.4 percent, ZTE had 4.4 percent, and LG ranked fifth with 3.2 percent. ZTE was also fifth in smartphones, with a share of 5.2 percent, up from 1.8 a year ago, while HTC ranked fourth with an estimated 5.7 percent, down from 10.7 a year earlier.
