Details about Samsung’s strengths you can find inside the Samsung has unbeatable supply chain management, it is incredibly good in everything which is consumer hardware, but vulnerability remains in software and M&A [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Nov 11, 2013] post of mine.
My findings supporting the above title:
205 million Android smartphones were delivered in Q3’13, representing 15.2% growth sequentially (Q/Q) and 67.3% growth relative to the same period of last year (Y/Y)
Meanwhile the number of Apple iPhones shipped increased only to 33.8 million, growing by 8.3% sequentially (Q/Q), but still representing a 25.65% growth relative to the same period of last year (Y/Y)
The shipment of “proper” smartphones from Nokia (S60/Symbian and Lumia/Windows Phone) increased to 8.8 million units, representing 18.9% growth sequentially (Q/Q) and 39.7% growth relative to the same period of last year (Y/Y)
Meanwhile the shipment of “de facto” smartphones from Nokia (S60/Symbian, Lumia/Windows Phone and Asha Full Touch in S40 Series) increased to 14.7 million units, representing 25.6% growth sequentially (Q/Q) and 14.8% growth relative to the same period of last year (Y/Y). It is also important that the decline of Asha Full Touch after its peak of 9.3 million units sold in Q4’12 has been reversed with 5.9 million units shipped, representing a sizable 37.2% growth sequentially (Q/Q).
The new (in Q3’13) Asha 501 became the most popular smartphone on the Indian market in the $60-80 price range (as per Flipkart, see above), successfully beating off the best competitive offerings from Samsung and the two leading local brands, Micromax and Karbonn. This is another positive sign of successfull revival of the Asha Touch platform started with Asha 501 (via the Asha Software Platform 1.0) as described in the New Nokia Asha platform for developers [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, May 9, 2013] and New Asha platform and ecosystem to deliver a breakthrough category of affordable smartphone from Nokia [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, May 9 – July 5, 2013] posts of mine. Everything is well represented by comparing the “micro reports” included into the bottom left corner of the overall chart a quarter ago and now:
As one currently could see this Nokia (the devices part of it soon becoming the part of Microsoft*) could realise its goal of selling “100 million of the new generation Asha smartphones over the coming years, beginning with the Nokia Asha 501”. The Asha 500, Asha 502 and Asha 503 introduced in October 22 could already deliver a huge jump in shipments of “de facto smartphones” under Asha brand, helping to defend further and even improve Nokia’s market position against the sub $100 Android smartphones in Q4’13. Note also that Asha 500 was announced for $69 list price (before taxes or subsidies) which means that—depending on “race to the bottom” competition—could easily mean a street price of $60+ on the Indian market.
* See also the previous posts of mine:
- Unique Nokia assets (from factories to global device distribution & sales, and the Asha sub $100 smartphone platform etc.) will now empower the One Microsoft devices and services strategy [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Sept 3 – Oct 23, 2013]
- Microsoft answers to the questions about Nokia devices and services acquisition: tablets, Windows downscaling, reorg effects, Windows Phone OEMs, cost rationalization, ‘One Microsoft’ empowerment, and supporting developers for an aggressive growth in market share [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Sept 3 – Oct 23, 2013]
- Microsoft Nokia Transaction Conference Call with slides from Microsoft Strategic Rationale inserted-ebook – 3-Sept-2013 edited by Sándor Nacsa from those two sources into an ebook format PDF
- Leading edge Nokia phablets for both entertainment and productivity: Lumia 1320 targeting the masses at $339, and Lumia 1520 the imaging conscious business users and individuals at $749 [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Oct 26, 2013]
The Asha Touch revival was also able to stop the decline of the overall Nokia “mobile phones” category (Nokia S30, S40, Asha and Asha Full Touch phones) exactly at 55.8 million units, the same number as for the Q1’13. 
In addition there are now the Leading edge Nokia phablets for both entertainment and productivity: Lumia 1320 targeting the masses at $339, and Lumia 1520 the imaging conscious business users and individuals at $749 [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Oct 26, 2016].
With that Nokia established a strong niche market position on both the $130+ market (starting with Lumia 520 sold at that price in India, also the most popular one on Flipkart for the the $80-160 price range of devices) and the sub $80 market against the onslaught of Android devices. The rest will depend now only on Microsoft.
Than for the lead smartphone market, i.e. Mainland China I will include here:
China market: Smartphone sales top 93 million units in 3Q13, says Analysys [Digitimes, Nov 12, 2013]
There were 102.66 million handsets sold in the China market during the third quarter of 2013, growing 13.6% on quarter and 54.5% on year, of which 93.08 million units were smartphones, increasing 20.7% on quarter and 89.3% on year, according to China-based consulting company Analysys International.
While for the worldwide market:
China-based smartphone vendors set to rise in 2013 rankings, says IC Insights [Digitimes, Nov 13, 2013]
Lenovo, ZTE, Huawei and Yulong/Coolpad have taken advantage of the surging low-end smartphone market. According to IC Insights, the four major China-based handset companies are forecast to ship 168 million smartphones in 2013 and together hold a 17% share of the worldwide smartphone market.
Lenovo, ZTE, Huawei and Yulong/Coolpad shipped a combined 98 million smartphones in 2012, a more than 300% surge from the 29 million units shipped in 2011, IC Insights disclosed. It should be noted that the China-based suppliers of smartphones are primarily serving the China and Asia-Pacific marketplace, and offer low-end models that typically sell for less than US$200.
Low-end smartphones are expected to represent just under one-third (310 million) of the total 975 million smartphones shipped in 2013. IC Insights forecast that by 2017, low-end smartphone shipments will represent 46% of the total smartphone market with China and the Asia-Pacific region to remain the primary markets for these low-end models.
Samsung Electronics and Apple are set to continue dominating the total smartphone market in 2013. The two vendors are forecast to ship 457 million units and together hold a 47% share of the total smartphone market in 2013, IC Insights said. In 2012, Samsung and Apple shipped 354 million smartphones and took a combined 50% share of the total smartphone market.
Nokia was third-largest supplier of smartphones behind Samsung and Apple in 2011, but has seen its share of the smartphone market fall. Nokia’s smartphone shipments are forecast to decline by another 4% and grab an only 3% share of the total smartphone market in 2013, IC Insights indicated.
Other smartphone producers that have fallen on hard times include RIM and HTC. While each of these companies had about a 10% share of the smartphone market in 2011, IC Insights estimated they will have only about 2% shares of the 2013 smartphone market.
Gartner Says Smartphone Sales Accounted for 55 Percent of Overall Mobile Phone Sales in Third Quarter of 2013 [press release, Nov 14, 2013]
- Western Europe Grew for the First Time this Year
- Lenovo Became the No. 3 Worldwide Smartphone Vendor for the First Time
Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled 455.6 million units in the third quarter of 2013, an increase of 5.7 percent from the same period last year, according to Gartner, Inc. Sales of smartphones accounted for 55 percent of overall mobile phone sales in the third quarter of 2013, and reached their highest share to date.
Worldwide smartphone sales to end users reached 250.2 million units, up 45.8 percent from the third quarter of 2012. Asia/Pacific led the growth in both markets – the smartphone segment with 77.3 percent increase and the mobile phone segment with 11.9 percent growth. The other regions to show an increase in the overall mobile phone market were Western Europe, which returned to growth for the first time this year, and the Americas.
“Sales of feature phones continued to decline and the decrease was more pronounced in markets where the average selling price (ASP) for feature phones was much closer to the ASP affordable smartphones,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. “In markets such as China and Latin America, demand for feature phones fell significantly as users rushed to replace their old models with smartphones.”
Gartner analysts said global mobile phone sales are on pace to reach 1.81 billion units in 2013, a 3.4 percent increase from 2012. “We will see several new tablets enter the market for the holiday season, and we expect consumers in mature markets will favor the purchase of smaller-sized tablets over the replacement of their older smartphones” said Mr. Gupta.
While Samsung’s share was flat in the third quarter of 2013, Samsung increased its lead over Apple in the global smartphone market (see Table 1). The launch of the Samsung Note 3 helped reaffirm Samsung as the clear leader in the large display smartphone market, which it pioneered.
Lenovo’s sales of smartphones grew to 12.9 million units, up 84.5 percent year-on-year. It constantly raised share in the Chinese smartphone market.
Apple’s smartphone sales reached 30.3 million units in the third quarter of 2013, up 23.2 percent from a year ago. “While the arrival of the new iPhones 5s and 5c had a positive impact on overall sales, such impact could have been greater had they not started shipping late in the quarter. While we saw some inventory built up for the iPhone 5c, there was good demand for iPhone 5s with stock out in many markets,” said Mr. Gupta.
In the smartphone operating system (OS) market (see Table 2), Android surpassed 80 percent market share in the third quarter of 2013, which helped extend its leading position. “However, the winner of this quarter is Microsoft which grew 123 percent. Microsoft announced the intent to acquire Nokia’s devices and services business, which we believe will unify effort and help drive appeal of Windows ecosystem,” said Mr. Gupta. Forty-one per cent of all Android sales were in mainland China, compared to 34 percent a year ago. Samsung is the only non-Chinese vendor in the top 10 Android players ranking in China. Whitebox Yulong [Coolpad] is the third largest Android vendor in China with a 9.7 percent market share in the third quarter of 2013. Xiaomi represented 4.3 percent of Android sales in the third quarter of 2013, up from 1.4 percent a year ago.
Mobile Phone Vendor Perspective
Samsung: Samsung extended its lead in the overall mobile phone market, as its market share totaled 25.7 percent in the third quarter of 2013 (see Table 3). “While Samsung has started to address its user experience, better design is another area where Samsung needs to focus,” said Mr. Gupta. “Samsung’s recent joint venture with carbon fiber company SGL Group could bring improvements in this area in future products.”
Nokia: Nokia did better than anticipated in the third quarter of 2013, reaching 63 million mobile phones, thanks to sales of both Lumia and Asha series devices. Increased smartphone sales supported by an expanded Lumia portfolio, helped Nokia move up to the No. 8 spot in the global smartphone market. But regional and Chinese Android device manufacturers continued to beat market demand, taking larger share and creating a tough competitive environment for Lumia devices.
Apple: Gartner believes the price difference between the iPhone 5c and 5s is not enough in mature markets, where prices are skewed by operator subsidies, to drive users away from the top of the line model. In emerging markets, the iPhone 4S will continue to be the volume driver at the low end as the lack of subsidy in most markets leaves the iPhone 5c too highly priced to help drive further penetration.
Lenovo: Lenovo moved to the No. 7 spot in the global mobile phone market, with sales reaching approximately 13 million units in the third quarter of 2013. “Lenovo continues to rely heavily on its home market, which represents more than 95 per cent of its overall mobile phone sales. This could limit its growth after 2014, when the Chinese market is expected to decelerate,” said Mr. Gupta.
Filed under: "smart" feature phones, consumer computing, consumer devices, Geopolitics, smartphones Tagged: Android smartphones, Apple, Apple iPhone, Apple iPhones, Asha 501, Asha Touch, Coolpad, Gionee, Huawei, India, Indian market, iPhone, Karbonn, Lenovo, Lumia, Mainland China market, Micromax, Nokia, overall mobile phone market, Samsung, smartphone market, smartphones in China, Xiaomi, Yulong, ZTE