Smartphone Sales Rose 29% Globally: Gartner
As per Gartner, the Global Sales of mobile smartphones shot up 29% during 1st quarter of 2008. Nokia continued to maintain its leadership with 45% share of the market and sales are up 25% on year. Research in Motion was the second-biggest smartphone vendor with 13.4% of the market driven by sales of the BlackBerry Curve and Pearl, while Apple Inc. ( AAPL) was the third-largest vendor with a 5.3% share in the market.
Smartphones are mobile phones that offer advanced capabilities often like functions in a personal computer.
According to Gartner, sales of “smart” phones doubled in North America in the first quarter, outperforming the category’s growth in the rest of the world. In the US, Apple did even better by claiming the No. 2 spot overall with a 20 percent share of the market. The iPhone maker, however, remains a distant second to RIM, which maintained its No. 1 US ranking with a share totaling 42 percent.
“Despite economic concerns, the smart-phone market continued to expand in the United States, driven by heavy advertising and strong marketing promotions as more devices reached mass-market price points,” said Gartner analyst Hugues De La Vergne. He expects carriers to continue pushing smart phones, because the associated data plans yield higher monthly subscription fees.
So the question lies whether Apple’s next-generation iPhone is going to overtake the most sought-after Blackberry smartphone in USA. We will wait and see.
Source: CNN Money
Filed under Mobile Technology