Lots and lots of data released over the past few days from research firms such as IDC, Gartner, comScore, Pew and other independent research houses. We start at the top with Mobile phones and then work our way deeper in to Smartphones, Platforms and finally Apps. Lets dive straight into it!
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| Source: Business Insider |
The first chart, from BI, shows that smartphone sales are on the rise on a per quarter basis and feature-phone sales are on a decline. Smartphones accounted for the 49% of total mobile
phone sales in the first quarter of 2013, coming tantalizingly close to
overtaking feature phone sales for the first time ever. It's no surprise that smartphones sales will eventually overtake feature phone sales and do it very soon. The reason for the growth in smartphone market share over that of feature phone's is not just the increase in smartphone sales but also the shrinking sales of feature phones, which declined 21% y-o-y. A majority of the world's population that owns a phone owns a feature phone so there is plenty of room for growth for smartphones.
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| Source: Pew Research |
The second chart shows the same trend; increase in smartphone ownership and decrease in feature phone ("Other cell phone") ownership. Mind you, this chart is based on a survey of adults in the U.S. rather than on a global research methodology.
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| Source: Pew Research |
So who buys smartphones? In a nutshell, the rich(er) and young(er). Obvious, right? Yes. So lets move on.
Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 1Q13 (Thousands of Units)
Company
|
1Q13
Units
|
1Q13 Market Share (%)
|
1Q12
Units
|
1Q12 Market Share (%)
|
Samsung
|
100,657.7
|
23.6
|
89,284.6
|
21.1
|
Nokia
|
63,215.2
|
14.8
|
83,162.5
|
19.7
|
Apple
|
38,331.8
|
9.0
|
33,120.5
|
7.8
|
LG Electronics
|
15,615.8
|
3.7
|
14,720.4
|
3.5
|
ZTE
|
14,606.6
|
3.4
|
17,379.7
|
4.1
|
Huawei Technologies
|
11,114.8
|
2.6
|
10,796.1
|
2.6
|
TCL Communication
|
8,515.9
|
2.0
|
7,396.6
|
1.7
|
Sony Mobile Communications
|
7,955.5
|
1.9
|
7,898.4
|
1.9
|
Lenovo
|
7,778.9
|
1.8
|
5,820.6
|
1.4
|
Yulong
|
7,478.8
|
1.8
|
3,146.6
|
0.7
|
Others
|
150,550.6
|
35.4
|
150,229.40
|
35.5
|
Total
|
425,821.6
|
100.0
|
422,955.4
|
100.0
|
Samsung was the numero uno mobile phone (including feature phones) vendor in the mobile phone market where sales nearly touched 426 million units in the first quarter of 2013. A subset of mobile phones, smartphone sales totaled 210 million units in the first quarter of 2013, up a whopping 42.9 percent from the first quarter of 2012!
Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 1Q13 (Thousands of Units)
Company
|
1Q13
Units
|
1Q13 Market Share (%)
|
1Q12
Units
|
1Q12 Market Share (%)
|
Samsung
|
64,740.0
|
30.8
|
40,612.8
|
27.6
|
Apple
|
38,331.8
|
18.2
|
33,120.5
|
22.5
|
LG Electronics
|
10,080.4
|
4.8
|
4,961.4
|
3.4
|
Huawei Technologies
|
9,334.2
|
4.4
|
5,269.6
|
3.6
|
ZTE
|
7,883.3
|
3.8
|
4,518.9
|
3.1
|
Others
|
79,676.4
|
37.9
|
58,537.0
|
39.8
|
Total
|
210,046.1
|
100.0
|
147,020.2
|
100.0
|
Samsung wins the war here too with a 31% market share for smartphone sales in 1Q 2013.
It's a different story in the US though...
| Top Smartphone OEMs 3 Month Avg. Ending Apr. 2013 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Jan. 2013 Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Age 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens | |||
| Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers | |||
| Jan-13 | Apr-13 | Point Change | |
| Total Mobile Subscribers | 100.0% | 100.0% | N/A |
| Apple | 37.8% | 39.2% | 1.4 |
| Samsung | 21.4% | 22.0% | 0.6 |
| HTC | 9.7% | 8.9% | -0.8 |
| Motorola | 8.6% | 8.3% | -0.3 |
| LG | 7.0% | 6.7% | -0.3 |
Apple takes the top spot in the US for smartphone market share in 1Q 2013 followed by Samsung.
However it's a different story in the platform war...
| Top Smartphone Platforms 3 Month Avg. Ending Apr. 2013 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Jan. 2013 Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Age 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens | |||
| Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers | |||
| Jan-13 | Apr-13 | Point Change | |
| Total Smartphone Subscribers | 100.0% | 100.0% | N/A |
| 52.3% | 52.0% | -0.3 | |
| Apple | 37.8% | 39.2% | 1.4 |
| BlackBerry | 5.9% | 5.1% | -0.8 |
| Microsoft | 3.1% | 3.0% | -0.1 |
| Symbian | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.0 |
Here's an interested table that spells out the demographic differences between Android and iOS owner.
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| Source: Pew Research |
Let's move deeper into the smartphone ecosystem and talk about App Marketplaces.
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| Source: Distimo |
In Google Play, the only game in the Top 5 Free Apps is Candy Crush Saga, while all the other Apps are Messaging and Voice Apps, with WhatsApp taking the top spot. It seems Android users are concerned with keeping in touch while playing the occasional game on their device. Looking a bit deeper into this analysis, it seems Android users are more cost conscious than their Apple counterparts since Android users seem to use messaging and voice Apps based on TCP/IP, which tends to be an inexpensive alternative to regular voice/sms plans IF bundled appropriately with a data plan and used over WiFi.
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| Source: Distimo |
Moving on to the Top 5 Apple App store Apps, its mainly games! Looks like iPhone users have a lot of time on their hands...hey don't judge! Keep in mind these stats are for the month of May 2013, so this stuff keeps changing. Another point is that critical apps tend to be downloaded first and once when the phone is new. For example, you'd download Google Maps, a very popular app, once and keep it... you wouldn't download it every month. With games, it keeps changing...games are more like fads.
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| Source: Distimo |
In terms of paid apps, Android users seem to prefer productivity apps with the occasional game.
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| Source: Distimo |
Distimo, the App analytics company does an awesome job of organizing this data on its interactive Leaderboards. You can slice-n-dice app data by platform, country, free/paid, app category and more. Here's a chart to whet your 'app'etite.
So that about sums up all the Mobile phone related data released last week. Some conclusive trends: iPhone is dominant in the US, Android is growing globally and in the US. iPhone is for the rich. Android is for the young and savvy. And Blackberry is for...uhh...ummm...well here's a picture that sums it up.
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