Smartphone statistics and market share
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- General smartphone statistics
- Smartphone operating systems
- Smartphone manufacturers
- Mobile email statistics (separate article)
- General email marketing statistics (separate article)
Smartphone stats
Recent sales stats (global):
- IDC say 153.9 million smartphones sold worldwide in Q2 2012. Total 2011 sales were 491.4 million units.
- Gartner estimate sales of smartphones in the same period at some 153.8 million. Estimated total sales across 2011 were 472 million or 31% of mobile communication device sales. This compares with figures for 2010 from the same company of 297 million smartphones or 19% of the 1.6 billion mobile phones sold that year. So year-on-year smartphone sales rose 58%.
Recent sales stats (US and Canada):
- Nielsen report that 54.9% of US mobile phone owners have a smartphone as of Q2 2012.
- comScore estimate that smartphone ownership in the US reached 110 million users by May 2012 (3-month average).
- They also estimate average smartphone ownership in Canada reached 45.3% of mobile subscribers at the end of 2011 or just over 9 million smartphone users.
- A Pew Internet Project survey from Aug-Sept 2012 found 45% of US adults owned a smartphone. The figure was 66% among 18-29 year-olds.
Recent sales stats (UK and mainland Europe):
- IDC say 27.4 million smartphones sold in Western Europe in Q2 2012. Samsung's share is 43.6%, followed by Apple at 19%.
- A May 2012 YouGov survey found 47% of UK mobile phone users now have a smartphone. They expect that number to hit over 55% by the same time next year.
- comScore reckon there were just over 28 million UK smartphone users by May 2012 (3-month average), a year-on-year increase of 38%.
- The same company put combined smartphone ownership for France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK at 44% of mobile users as of December 2011 (104 million users).
- Figures quoted in the FT put UK smartphone ownership at 46% as of August 2011.
- According to Bitkom, 11.8 million smartphones were sold in 2011 in Germany, an increase of 31% over 2010. This represents 43% of the total number of mobile phones sold that year.
Sales predictions:
- The Financial Times cites a JPMorgan prediction that 657 million smartphones will leave stores in 2012.
- IDC expect 2012 smartphone sales to reach 686 million, and predict they will rise to 982 million in 2015.
- IMS Research expect smartphones to reach 1 billion in annual sales in 2016 (half the mobile device market).
- Morgan Stanley Research estimates sales of smartphones will exceed those of PCs in 2012.
Smartphone operating systems
IDC looked at global smartphone shipments in Q2 2012, placing Android well out in front in terms of operating system share:
Source: IDC Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, August 8, 2012
Gartner's analysis of global Q2 2012 smartphone sales also shows the Android operating system dominating market share:
Source: Gartner (August 2012)
Nielsen's figures for Q2 2012 in the US show Android as the leading OS with 51.8% of all currently-owned smartphones, followed by Apple's iOS at 34.3% and the RIM OS at 8.1%:
Source: Nielsen (July 2012)
They also note that the dominance of Android and iOS is even greater among more recent smartphone purchases.
A comScore survey from December 2011 for the US gives the following figures for the operating system market:
Source: comScore (February 2012)
Smartphone manufacturers
July 2012 data from IDC for worldwide smartphone sales put Apple and Samsung phones on top for Q2 2012:
Source: IDC Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, July 26, 2012
Apple themselves announced they sold over 37 million iPhones in Q4 2011. IDC also provide a chart showing how market share has changed across recent quarters: