Gartner has just published its detailed report on mobile handset sales for the first quarter of 2013, and as expected Android remains the king of this domain, with Samsung leading the charts.
The Windows Phone platform, on the other hand, has shown good signs of growth — practically doubling its small market share. Microsoft’s platform now stands at 3 percent of the total mobile phone sales, but there is a long way to go still before it can challenge the two established platforms.
According to the published figures, the sales of mobile handsets have risen by a petite amount of 0.7 percent compared to the same amount last year to end up at 425 million devices sold.
Smartphone sales actually grew by 63 million units and now accounts for almost half of all the handsets sold during this past quarter.
Android now accounts for pretty much 75 percent of the total smartphone sales — a jump of nearly 20 percent compared to the same time last year. Apple iOS, however, lost market share because of slow growth during the first three months of the year and now makes up only 18 percent of the market.
The breakdown of devices and vendors reveals that Samsung still retained its position as the forerunner, and Gartner estimates that the Korean handset maker sold around 100 million units.
Nokia came in at second position with sales of 63 million units — down nearly 20 million when taken in context to the numbers during the same period last year. While the Finnish company is finding success with its Lumia smartphones, the same cannot be said of the other devices that it makes.
A glance at the market shows that Asia is the biggest market overall, with China the largest single market when it came to mobile phone sales. In fact, the Asia/Pacific region now accounts for a remarkable 50 percent of total handset sales during this past quarter.
