A Gartner report has revealed that for the first time smartphones have outsold more basic feature phone models.
In the second quarter of 2013 Smartphones shipped 225 million units while feature phones declined to ‘just’ 221 million devices. This meant a rise of over 46% for smartphone sales over the same quarter last year and a drop of 21% for feature phone sales over the same period.
The massive growth in Smartphone sales was driven by Samsung who took the lions share with over 30% of global smartphone sales going to the South Korean tech company. Apple came in second with just over 14% of sales though it’s clear that Android phones are behind the switch to smartphone dominance over feature phones. Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS also overtook the Blackberry OS for the first time giving Windows Phone units the third highest sales globally.
While sales of smartphones grew in all regions the biggest changes came from emerging markets in Asia, Eastern Europe and South America where shrinking smartphone costs and rising wages have coincided to make high-tech handsets an affordable luxury. Samsung and Apple are leading the pack across the world while a host of other Asian manufacturers are battling for third place with Lenovo, LG and ZTE all hovering around the 10million units mark, with Nokia conspicuously absent despite the apparent success of the Windows Phone OS.