Gartner: Mobile phones sold in 1.75bln units last year, smartphones most in demand

Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled 1.75 billion units in 2012, a 1.7 percent decline from 2011, according to Gartner, Inc.

Smartphones continued to drive overall mobile phone sales, and the fourth quarter of 2012 saw record smartphone sales of 207.7 million units, up 38.3 percent from the same period last year.

Tough economic conditions, shifting consumer preferences and intense market competition weakened the worldwide mobile phone market this year,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner.

Demand for feature phones remained weak in 2012 and in the fourth quarter. Feature phone sales totalled 264.4 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012, down 19.3 per cent year-on-year.

Gartner analysts expect feature phones sales to continue to fall in 2013.

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In the fourth quarter of 2012, Apple and Samsung together raised their worldwide smartphone market share to 52 percent from 46.4 percent in the third quarter of 2012.

Samsung ended the year in the first position, in both worldwide smartphone sales and overall mobile phone sales.

Huawei reached the No. 3 position among smartphone vendors for the first time. In 2012, Huawei sold 27.2 million smartphones to end users, up 73.8 per cent from 2011.