The smartphone market continued to surge in the quarter, with Apple’s iPhone sales rising 91% from a year ago, making it the No. 4 global handset vendor measured by volume.
Since 2009 it has created the largest profits in the industry.
“The entrance of Apple to the top five vendor ranking underscores the increased importance of smartphones to the overall market,” IDC analyst Kevin Restivo said in a statement.
IDC said it expects smartphone market volumes to grow 55% this year from a year ago.
Sony Ericsson and Motorola, both benefited from their shift in focus to smartphones in the quarter, but their total sales volumes continued to shrink sharply from a year ago as they sold less cheaper models.
Among the top three vendors only No.2 Samsung Electronics continued to win market share, while the share of LG Electronics and that of market leader Nokia shrank in the quarter.
Wider market
Overall, the wider mobile phone market growth slowed slightly in the September quarter due to worries over economic growth and component shortages, and the market growth would slow further in the current quarter, researchers said.
The phones market – the largest volume electronics industry – has surged this year from a slump in 2009 when the recession hit consumer spending on the latest gadgets around the world.
Strategy Analytics (SA) said the overall annual market growth slowed to 13% in the third quarter, from 16% in the first half, and forecast growth to slow further to 10% in the fourth quarter.
“Component shortages and ongoing economic volatility slightly constrained volumes,” said analyst Neil Mawston.
“We expect the escalating smartphone wars to provide positive upside for handset volumes in the fourth quarter, but the volatile supply of certain components will mean some vendors may not be able to deliver their fully desired output of phones.”
Several handset makers, including Nokia and Sony Ericsson, said component shortages dragged their sales in the quarter below expectations.
“The hangover from the economic downturn persisted with constrained component supply impacting performance,” said CCS Insight analyst Geoff Blaber.
“We expect supply to remain a problem in the fourth quarter as an abundance of smartphones and a swathe of tablet devices increases pressure on component supply,” Blaber said.
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