In this post, we highlight findings from scouring Gartner’s pivot tables from its 1Q13 Mobile Devices Market
Share report published May 13. We find this report helpful in understanding country-by-country and region-by-region trends, which often are not given on company conference calls. Countries studied include, the U.S., China, India and Canada. Companies include ZTE, Lenovo, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Samsung, Nokia, and Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) among others.
China – Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Samsung Making Steady Progress, But The Rest of The Market Is a Chinese Vendor Story
The Chinese market remains severely fragmented, with Chinese-based manufacturers, including ZTE, Huawei, Lenovo and a large assortment of white-box vendors holding roughly 75% share of all handset sales and 67% of all smartphone sales during 1Q13. Smartphones represented 65% of all handset sales, up from 33% just one year ago. Meanwhile, Nokia’s share continued to shrink and is now under 3%, while Samsung grew its share to 13%. Of note, Apple climbed to 6.3% share of total handsets in China, surpassing its previous high of 5.6% shares reached one year ago during the iPhone 4S launch. Raymond James expects an iPhone on China Mobile could bring it more into the consistent 10% share range.
India – Volume Growth Flattening Out, Share Story Remains the Same
India handset sales volumes grew just 0.8% y/y to 54.1 million, down from 57.3 million in 4Q12. Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V)’s share declined 320 bp24.6% to 21.4%, as the strong demand from the launch of new Asha phones during the second half of last year appears to have disintegrated. Meanwhile, Samsung’ share decline slightly from 21.8% to 20.3%. Smartphone demand remains subdued as the rollout of 3G coverage in India continues to be slow. More than half the market (53.4%) is still dominated by non-Western, largely Chinese and Indian handset vendors, including Micromax, with low-end feature phones.
Canada – Don’t Call it a Come Back, BlackBerry’s Z10 Launch Delivers Share Pop
The launch of the BlackBerry Z10 in 1Q13 finally reversed Blackberry’s share slide, jumping from 6% in 4Q12 to 13.5% this quarter. For some context, two years ago in 1Q11, BlackBerry had 21.8% share. Even more share gains are expected in 2Q13 with the launch of the QWERTY-keyboard Q10 in Canada. Following the strong iPhone 5 launch, which lead to 44% share in 4Q13, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s share dropped to 40.1% in 1Q13. Samsung held tightly to its number two position despite its share declining slightly to 29.8% from 32.1% in 4Q12.
United States – Volumes Down 11% Y/Y, BlackBerry BB10 Share Impact TBD, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Mixed
U.S. handset sales declined 10.6% y/y in 1Q13, from 41.1 million in 1Q12 to 36.8 million as the first quarter did not see a launch of a flagship device from Samsung or Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)’s new Z10 hit the U.S. on March 22, with just one week remaining in the quarter so we will have to wait to 2Q13 to see the success the Z10 and Q10 have in moving BlackBerry’s share from 1Q13’s 1.8% level. Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V)’s share remained weak at 1.5% ahead of second quarter launches of the Lumia 928 on Verizon and 925 on T Mobile. HTC had supply issues with its flagship HTC One device and saw its share drop to 2.5%. Meanwhile, Samsung’s share hovered at 31.4%, down slightly from 31.8% in 4Q12 ahead of the second quarter launch of its flagship Galaxy S4. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s share declined from 33.6% in 4Q12 following the launch of iPhone 5 to 28.7% in 1Q13, but is still up meaningfully y/y from 22.3% in the year ago period.
