Samsung has ousted Nokia from the top rank of worldwide mobile handset shipments for 2012 after the latter had held this position for 14 years. According to research firm IHS iSuppli, the South Korean vendor is expected to grab 29 per cent of the worldwide handset market share up from 24 per cent in 2011 while the Finnish giant's market share will drop to 24 per cent from 30 per cent last year. “Smartphone sales have been growing more than the basic and feature phones regionally and globally," said Wayne Lam, senior analyst for wireless communications at IHS said in a statement. “Smartphones represent the fastest-growing segment of the cellphone market — and will account for nearly half of all wireless handset shipments for all of 2012. Samsung's successes and Nokia's struggles in the cellphone market this year were determined entirely by the two companies' divergent fortunes in the smartphone sector." Global smartphone shipments are set to rise by 35.5 per cent this year, while overall cellphone shipments will increase by approximately one per cent. This rapid growth will propel 2012 smartphone penetration to 47 per cent, up from 35 per cent in 2011. In the Middle East and Africa, around 196 million units are expected to be sold this year. Out of this, around 20 per cent are going to be smartphones. Nokia is mired in transitioning its smartphone line to the Windows operating system, resulting in declining shipments for the company. Sales of the company's older Symbian-based phones have plunged, while its new Microsoft Windows 7-based handsets haven't been able to make up for the loss so far. Samsung is expected to post the best performance among the top five smartphone brands in 2012, with its share of global smartphone shipments rising 8 points to 28 per cent, up from 20 per cent in 2011. In contrast, Nokia will suffer the biggest decrease, with its share forecast to plunge by 11 points to 5 per cent in 2012, down from 16 per cent in 2011. Annette Zimmermann, Principal Analyst at Gartner Deutschland, Nokia will still be a leader in the basic and features in the Middle East and Africa followed by Samsung. Along with Nokia, two other entities — HTC of Taiwan, as well as RIM — struggled throughout 2012 in the smartphone market. HTC is facing a tough battle against Samsung, an acknowledged technology powerhouse, in the Android smartphone market. Market share for HTC will shrink to five per cent in 2012, down from nine per cent in 2011. RIM, meanwhile, lacking a fresh new version of its operating system, has seen its market share slip as the company's traditional enterprise consumers left the platform for both Apple's iOS and Google's Android. RIM's share will fall to five per cent in 2012, down from 11 per cent in 2011. With the growth momentum behind smartphones, IHS anticipates that the smartphone penetration rate in 2013 will elevate smartphones into the majority among all phone segments, at 56 per cent. This event will mark a significant tipping point in the mobile handset market, as the smartphone takes a dominant position in the industry. Annette said RIM and Symbian will lose market share further. Android's market share will slip as Apple and Microsoft will take some market share from Google's operating system. Gulf News
