2Q-2010 proved to be a very solid quarter for the mobile handset market with 321.2 million handsets shipped, of which WCDMA handsets made up 31 percent. Growth was 5.9 percent Quarter-on-Quarter and 19.4 percent Year-on-Year.
“Mobile phone users seem to be shrugging off their economic woes and going handset shopping,” says ABI Research Practice Director Kevin Burden. “It is remarkable that the smartphone is starting to appeal to a very wide market cross-section. The smartphone is about to go multi-generational and the popularity of the number one handset form-factor, the ‘candy-bar’, could be waning.”
Nokia continued to shed market share, declining to 34.5 percent in 2Q-2010. Nokia has been doing some serious reorganization. R&D has been more closely aligned with business priorities. Nokia has been piling on resources to iron out the code needed to meet expectations for Symbian OS and MeeGo.
LG notched up an increase in share to 9.5 percent, but compatriot Samsung broke a seven-quarter winning streak of increasing QoQ market share. Samsung attributes this to the decline in the European economic outlook. Vice President for Forecasting Jake Saunders comments, “Samsung is still gunning for Nokia’s pre-eminent spot, but we will have to see if Samsung’s recent smartphone launches, such as the Galaxy S, will help it resume its march on Nokia.”
It looks as if Apple’s iPhone 4 antenna media melee took the edge off 2Q-2010 shipments. Market share actually shrank slightly to 2.6 percent. Apple is still cranking up inventory, but sales should have “wowed more” at this stage of the iPhone 4’s product release cycle.
RIM, with a 3.5 percent share, has been able to build cachet around the strength of its messaging platform, combining strong design aesthetics with a decent set of entertainment-orientated features that are helping RIM to expand its appeal.
Motorola’s 2Q numbers were down on 1Q-2010, at 8.3 million (2.6 percent). Motorola has won critical acclaim for a number of its latest smartphones, but has experienced challenges ramping up product awareness and access to markets.
