Nokia tumbles off list of top five global smartphone vendors: IDC

Nokia has been in the list since IDC Mobile Phone Tracker was launched in 2004, and was the dominant player in China as recently as the third quarter of 2011.

It has, however, retained its spot in the world's top five mobile phone vendors (as opposed to smartphones), coming in second after Samsung and ahead of Apple. 

"Nokia's share losses have meant gains for competitors," said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. "The company's transition away from Symbian-powered smartphones to ones shipped with Windows Phone has left ample opportunity for rivals to steal share away from Nokia over the past 18 months."

It's not all over for Nokia however, continued Restivo. "The smartphone market is still relatively nascent, which means there's room for multiple vendors and operating systems to flourish, including Nokia."

Despite its ascendance into the top five, RIM, like Nokia, is a smartphone vendor in transition, commented Ramon Llamas, research manager with IDC's Mobile Phone team.

Its shipment volumes have flattened and the company posted the second-highest year-over-year decline of any the leading vendors. It was the ailing Canadian company's older product portfolio and models that helped it achieve sales. RIM's installed base, which topped 80 million active users during the quarter, provides further evidence of the company's widespread presence globally.

Still, without a new flagship model in time for the holiday season and BB10 models not expected until the first quarter of 2013, RIM's position as a top five smartphone vendor will be under tremendous pressure from other companies, observed IDC's report. 

Motorola too, once the world's third smartphone vendor, is in the process of redirecting itself under parent company Google, continued Llamas. "These are just two vendors among many that feel the competitive pressure of Samsung and Apple, but are striving to create multiple points of differentiation to assert upward pressure."

Globally, the mobile phone market grew 2.4 per cent year over year in the third quarter of 2012 driven by Samsung and Apple, reported IDC.

Overall, vendors shipped a total of 444.5 million mobile phones in 3Q12 compared to 434.1 million units in the third quarter of 2011. Smartphone vendors however shipped 79.7 million units in 3Q12 compared to 123.7 million units in 3Q11, exceeding IDC's expectations.

Despite the ongoing patent war with Apple, Samsung held on to its leadership position in the worldwide smartphone market, posting another record quarter for itself and the industry, and more than double the total volume of its next closest competitor, Apple.

This marks the first time since 4Q09 that a single company held more than 31 per cent market share in a single quarter.

"Samsung's growth was fueled in large part by its broad, deep, and refreshed Android portfolio, highlighted by the full quarter availability of its flagship model Galaxy S III," said IDC.  "In addition, the company announced multiple mid-range and mass-market models, including a new Windows Phone, the ATIV S."

Apple's iPhone shipments finished the quarter with 26.9 million units. Although the iPhone 5 was only on the market for one week in 3Q2012, Apple managed to sell more than 5 million units in the first weekend alone. 

iPhone sales weren't dampened by the introduction of its Maps software, which was not completely ready for use, concluded IDC. "Instead, the iPhone 5's larger screen and 4G LTE connectivity generated user interest."

ZTE has managed to finish in the top 5 thanks to continued international diversification efforts, said the report. "ZTE has grown its smartphone sales of late thanks primarily to an uptick in lower-cost smartphone sales in many emerging markets."

The China-based vendor has also succeeded in making progress in North America. 

HTC's newer models HTC One X and the EVO 4G helped it retain its position at No. 5. Continued year-over-year growth in Asia-Pacific helped the smartphone vendor offset some of the share losses the vendor has endured in key mature markets, namely the US, said IDC.

Its challenge in future will be convincing consumers that the difference between its upcoming Windows Phone 8 models and Android-powered phones or iPhones are interesting enough to merit a purchase, said the study.