Gartner Says Worldwide Smartphone Sales Reached Its Lowest Growth Rate With 3.7 Per Cent Increase in Fourth Quarter of 200

Egham, U.K. -- In the fourth quarter of 2008, worldwide sales of smartphones to end users reached 38.1 million units, an increase of 3.7 per cent on the fourth quarter of 2007, according to Gartner, Inc. Global sales of smartphones for 2008 reached 139.3 million devices, up 13.9 per cent compared with 2007.

“After a strong third quarter with new product introductions, sequential growth slowed down again in the fourth quarter as fewer compelling new products and the worsened economic climate continued to make data plans associated with smartphones out of reach for most consumers,“ said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner. “In general in 2008, the focus from vendors and operators on increasing their smartphone portfolios remained very strong. Samsung, RIM, HTC and Apple saw their volumes and share increase during 2008 (see Table 2), thanks to their ability to offer compelling device experiences and touch interfaces.”

As a proportion of all mobile device sales, smartphones remained stable at 12 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008, from 11 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2007. Samsung entered the top five vendors ranking for the first time (see Table 1), replacing Sharp. RIM recorded an increase in sales both sequentially and year-over-year, while Nokia's volumes continued to fall.

Table 1
Worldwide: Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor, 4Q08 (Thousands of Units)

Note: Under the name HTC, Gartner counts only the company's own-branded devices. The devices that HTC designs for mobile operators are shown separately under the operators' names in these statistics.

Source: Gartner (March 2009)

Nokia maintained its No. 1 position, but in the fourth quarter of 2008 its smartphone sales declined by 16.8 per cent year-on-year. This also contributed to the overall weakness of the global smartphone segment in 4Q08, as the company commanded 40.8 per cent of the market. Nokia’s entry-level smartphone range will continue to offer good value for the money, but Nokia remains more exposed to pressure from competition in the higher end of the consumer smartphone market as the Nseries loses its appeal.

Apple’s initial sell-through dropped significantly as sales fell during the fourth quarter. Nevertheless, Apple maintained its third position in the global rankings. Apple built an inventory of about two million iPhone units in the third quarter of 2008 which did not reduce significantly in the fourth quarter. With Apple’s sequential decline, volumes were driven by new product introductions such as the RIM Storm, the T-Mobile G1 (the first product based on Google’s Android platform), and strong performance from Samsung’s touchscreen products. HTC had a very strong quarter with record sales of its HTC-branded devices and operator-branded devices.

Table 2

Worldwide: Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor, 2008 (Thousands of Units)

Note: For HTC we only count the company's own-branded devices. The devices that HTC designs and which have the operator's brand are given separately under the operator’s name in our statistics.

Source: Gartner (March 2009)

In the smartphone operating system (OS) market, Symbian's share of the global market decreased to 47.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008, down from its 2007 share of 62.3 per cent (see Table 3). Pressure from new platforms entering the consumer space, the continued decline of Nokia's smartphone sales and the weakness of the Japanese mobile device market have negatively affected Symbian's share. Meanwhile, RIM successfully grew its year-on-year share of the global smartphone market to 19.5 per cent from 10.9 per cent. Gartner estimated that Android smartphones accounted for 20 per cent of total Linux sales in the fourth quarter of 2008.

In the fourth quarter of 2008, Microsoft's share of the global smartphone market improved sequentially, with unit sales up 16 per cent over 3Q08. This was mainly driven by the popularity of Samsung Omnia and touchscreen products from HTC. Sales of Linux-based smartphones were up by 19 per cent year-over-year, mainly through Android-based smartphones being available through T-Mobile during the fourth quarter of 2008.

Table 3

Worldwide: Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System, 4Q08 (Thousands of Units)

Note: The "Other OSs" category includes sales of Sharp Sidekick devices based on the Danger platform.

Source: Gartner (March 2009)

Table 4

Worldwide: Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System, 2008 (Thousands of Units)