The news has been confirmed — Apple has indeed emerged as the World’s single biggest smartphone vendor displacing Nokia, according to market research firm Canalys.
Not only did Nokia surrender the first place, but it also lost the second place to Samsung during the quarter ended June, Canalys said.
In all, nearly 107.7 million smartphones were sold in the three months, up 73% from the same quarter of 2010.
Brands
Apple led with 20.3 million phones, a market share of 19%.
It was followed by Samsung, with 17.0 million units and another 0.7 million sold under different operator names, particularly in the US. It sold more than five times the number of smart phones it did in the same quarter of 2010.
However, Canalys said Samsung had failed to completely capitalize on Nokia’s failure. “It’s the best placed vendor to grow at Nokia’s expense, taking advantage of its global scale and channel reach, but it hasn’t yet done enough to capitalize on this, particularly in emerging markets,” said Canalys VP and Principal Analyst Chris Jones.
Besides, Nokia continued to lead in BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China.
“The problem for Nokia is that demand for its Symbian-based smart phones has dissipated very rapidly, particularly in operator-led markets, such as Western Europe, where it’s been strong in the past,” said Canalys Principal Analyst Pete Cunningham.
“It badly needs the first of its Windows Phone devices to launch as soon as possible to arrest a decline and, hopefully, silence its critics,” he added.
North America
Apple continued to be the number one in North America, but saw its share drip from 31% in the March quarter (three months ago) to 25%. HTC, the number two in North America, saw its market share rise to 21% of the smart phone market in North America.
The embattled Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of Blackberry phones saw its smart phone share slipping to 12%, down from 33% a year ago.
The research firm, however, pointed out that RIM did well outside its home markets, with global shipments growing 11% year on year. It was the number one vendor in Latin America, with a 28% share, it pointed out. It is also the number one in Indonesia and South Africa, it added.
Operating Systems
In terms of operating systems, Android increased its global lead over both Nokia’s Symbian and Apple’s iOS.
Android accounted for 48% of the total smart phones shipped in the quarter, followed by iOS with 19%, taking the second place away from Symbian. Android had overtaken Symbian at the end of last year.
“Of the 56 countries Canalys tracks around the world, Android led in 35 of them and achieved a global market share of 48%. Asia Pacific (APAC) remained the largest regional market, with 39.8 million units shipping there, compared with 35.0 million in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and 32.9 million in the Americas,” Canalys said.
Android-based smart phone shipments increased 379% over a year ago to 51.9 million units during the quarter.
“Growth was bolstered by strong Android product performances from a number of vendors, including Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, ZTE and Huawei. There were particularly strong performances from Android devices in APAC countries, such as South Korea, where Android holds an 85% platform share, and Taiwan, where it has 71%,” Canalys said.
The tail end was brought up by Microsoft’s Windows operating system. It had a market share of just 1%.