Worldwide smartphone sales grew by almost 16% in the second
quarter of the year, although sales growth is slowing, says
analyst
Gartner.
Smartphone sales totalled 32.2 million units in the second
quarter, a 15.7% increase over the second quarter of 2007.
In addition, of all mobile device sales, smartphones' share
remained stable at 11%, said the analyst.
"Although global smartphone sales to end-users in the first half
of 2008 reached 64 million units, up 22% on the first six months of
2007, sales increased at a lower rate than last year," said Gartner
analyst Roberta Cozza.
"The current economic environment continues to negatively impact
the market, limiting consumer spending and replacement purchases in
general," she added.
Cozza said that smartphone sales growth had slowed as a result
of "new, compelling touch technology, mainly available on enhanced
phones based on proprietary operating systems, rather than
smartphones".
Wider availability of new touch smartphone models, including the
global introduction of the iPhone 3G, is expected to help sales of
smartphones return to stronger growth in the third quarter of
2008.
Nokia remained the number one provider of smartphones, with a
47.5% market share, but its year-on-year growth was about half the
market average. Nokia faced greater competition in the consumer
smartphone market, which had an impact on its year-on-year
performance.
BlackBerry maker RIM was the number two provider, followed by
HTC.
Symbian remained the leading smartphone operating system,
followed by BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Linux, in that
order.
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