Apple closed the year a close second with 93.2 million units shipped and a market share 19 per cent. Despite disappointment that the iPhone 4S wasn't the iPhone 5, its launch saw Apple climb back into the market leadership position in the fourth quarter of last year (after ceding it to Samsung in the third quarter), shipping 37 million units in the last three months of 2011.
Overall, total smartphone shipment volumes reached 491.4 million units in 2011, up a strong 61.3 per cent from the 304.7 million units in 2010.This exceeds IDC's initial estimate of 54.7 per cent for the year, but is still below 2010's year-on-year growth of 75.7 per cent.
"By the end of the quarter, one out of every three mobiles phones shipped worldwide was a smartphone," said Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Phone Technology and Trends team. "The launch of Apple's iPhone 4S played a key role in smartphone growth to capture pent-up demand, and smartphone launches from other vendors also provided a broad selection to meet varying preferences and budgets."
While big-name devices such as Samsung's Galaxy Nexus and Apple's iPhone 4S garner the most attention, growth has also come from an increasing number of sub-US$250 device offerings, said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker program.
Of the top vendors, Nokia posted the largest year-on-year decrease, dropping 22.8 per cent to 77.3 million units shipped. However, its Windows Phone smartphones, which were well received at the Consumer Electronics Show, shipped "over a million units" in its debut quarter, according to Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop.
Research In Motion posted a modest 4.7 per cent growth year-on-year, shipping 51 million units thanks in part to its new BB OS 7 BlackBerry smartphones. But overshadowing these results was the global network outage in October, followed by announcements that its first BB 10-powered smartphones would not be available until late 2012. Such a delay gives the competition opportunity to attack RIM's strongholds, IDC has said.
Despite patent infringement battles, HTC managed to more than double its shipments in 2011 from 2010 with 43.5 million units shipped, supported by a strong pace of device releases. It released the Windows Phone-powered Titan and Radar models, the Beats-influenced Rezound, and the LTE-enabled Vivid in addition to multiple other Android-powered smartphones in the fourth quarter alone. "As has been HTC's approach all year long, these device launches kept the company's product portfolio well attuned to both operator and end-user tastes. Despite the many high-profile launches during the quarter, however, the Taiwanese vendor still shipped lower volumes compared to the previous quarter," observed IDC.
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