Preliminary Top 10 Smartphone Makers in Q3 - Samsung on top, Nokia tumbles to 10th

I regularly post the full quarterly analysis of the smartphone market on this blog, when all relevant data is in. Now I have all but one data point (still waiting for Gartner to release their count of the total market size for Q3, the other 3 of the big 4 analyst houses, IDC, Canalys and Strategy Analytics have already published theirs). But as we now know the rankings of the Top 10 manufactuers, and I already Tweeted those on Twitter, many have asked for a web link. So I'll post this preliminary Top 10 ranking page only, without yet the market shares (we can't count the market share percent until we know the full market size). But for those who really want to know urgently...

TOP 10 SMARTPHONE MANUFACTUERS Q3 OF 2012 (GLOBAL SALES)

Rank (previous) . . Manufacturer . . . Sales in Q3
1 (1) . . . . . . . . . . Samsung  . . . . . 56.2 Million
2 (2) . . . . . . . . . . Apple . . . . . . . . 26.9 Million
3 (8) . . . . . . . . . . Huawei . . . . . . . 16.0 Million
4 (7) . . . . . . . . . . Sony  . . . . . . . . . 8.8 Million
5 (5) . . . . . . . . . . ZTE  . . . . . . . . . . 8.0 Million
6 (4) . . . . . . . . . . HTC  . . . . . . . . . . 7.8 Million
7 (6) . . . . . . . . . . RIM  . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Million
8 (9) . . . . . . . . . . LG  . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Million
9 (11) . . . . . . . . . Lenovo  . . . . . . . . 7.0 Milllion
10 (3) . . . . . . . . . Nokia  . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Million
Source: TomiAhonen Analysis from vendor and market data
This data may be freely shared

So, first, note - Motorola (Google) tumbles out of Top 10. Welcome to the Top 10 for the first time to Chinese Lenovo! Nokia which was still 3rd biggest smartphone maker in Q2 falls to 10th and risks falling out of Top 10 for Christmas (there's a hot Chinese maker, Yulong, who sell smartphones under the brand Coolpad, who is eager to burst into the Top 10). And Huawei is making a big push up to separate from the pack to take clear 3rd ranking. Sony finally has its act together, is making profits once again with its handset unit and holds fourth place. Obviously Apple is without any challengers at second place, and Samsung sells more smartphones than the next 3 biggest smartphone makers combined.

And its becoming ever more an Asian field. The non-Asian contenders are down to three, one left in the USA (Apple), one from Canada (RIM, in trouble) and one left from Europe (Nokia, about to die - we have again rumors now from Information Week and PC Magazine are again speculating Microsoft will want to buy Nokia). But there are 3 from China, 2 from South Korea, one each from Japan and Taiwan. Soon it will be Asia vs Apple left in this race haha...

More to come soon on this Q3 in what I call Smartphone Bloodbath Year Three, Electric Jamboree. I'll have the full market shares for the above, plus the operating system market shares and the installed base calculated all for Q3 when the full data is available hopefully early next week. Also as usual, I'll be giving a commentary on each of the big smartphone makers and assign 'school grades' for their performance. If you don't know what all is in stock, check out Q2 smartphone market data here.

Comments

[cycnus]

Tomi back :)

Hi Tomi,
I believe you know that Huawei is a very aggressive company, so how soon you think Huawei will topple Apple?

Do you think RIM BB10 will DOA?

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi cygnus

Yeah, good to be back haha.. (seriously, am having intense withdrawal pains now, from the longest, most intense, most massively data-driven US election ever, so now with no new Romney-Obama polls to study every day, I feel like there is no meaning to my life haha.. and the Twitter election was a great culmination for it, but now.. gotta wait 2 and a half years before it starts again)

Yeah. Huawei. Certainly very aggressive and eager to price very competitively to steal market share. But Apple is headed to its good period, Q4 will be massive for Apple, they will somewhat pull ahead of Huawei now, and hold that lead into Q1 of 2013 but then, if Apple doesn't start to release cheaper iPhones aka iPhone Nano for the rest of the world, they will find that selling 200 million iPhones per year is not enough for more than 20% market share in 2013. And this hungry Huawei will be biting at their heels by the end of next year..

RIM has a base of customers, who are committed to it, who buy in bulk - major enterprises with lots invested, who are fully willing to wait for BB10 and then buy Blackberries on it. I can't see RIM dying as long as they keep their corporate base happy, but they lost the mass market race so they will diminish to an ever smaller niche player, like some early automobile makers decided to focus on some specialized niche markets like trucks or busses or taxis etc..

PS - its fun to talk smartphones again haha

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Ganesh Nayak]

Hi Tomi,

I never knew Lenovo made smartphones :)

Does this number include Galaxy Note from Samsung?

Also, a tangential question. Why is Samsung not doing so great in Tablets? Samsung gets it right with phones, but in tablets they seem to make some mistake or other (like pricing or specs). It feels as if Smartphones and tablets are run from different companies

[cycnus]

Hi Tomi,

Regarding apple...
Do you think apple 'run out of stock because not enough spare-part' is a hoarding technique use by apple to increase sale or is real?

Regarding RIM...
I was wondering if you know that BB10 would require a new BES server for corporation, so any current corporation that already have BES server for BB6 or BB7 OS, would need a separate server, and many said it's a deal breaker (just like nokia switching from Symbian to WP?), thus resulting a number of exodus from BB to other platform (ex. ICE, http://www.techspot.com/news/50680-pentagon-drops-exclusive-blackberry-contract-for-ios-android.html). So I was wondering, you're the winner of predicting nokia number when switching from symbian to wp. Do you predict RIM would do better than nokia in switching from pre-10 to 10? or same as nokia?

Tablet, Tablet, Tablet...
I know you're a busy man, but I was wondering if you're gonna start to track tablet number separately from smartphone, or you will put tablet number in smartphone category.

[Mats]

Tomi,

on Nokia: do you know anything about Nokia creating a separate legal entity for their "Location & Commerce" unit, I mean a separate company? I heard rumors from very reliable sources that this part (former Nokia gate5 + Navteq) is being put into a separate company...

Anything on that? Of course this would be a welcome way of getting Microsoft to buy a major stake in that business, especially now that Nokia Maps drives Bing Maps as well...

Mats

[zlutor]

Hehe, The Big Triad (E///, Moto and Nokia) is fading away... :-(
E/// out of handset game, Moto is out of Top10, Nokia is #10.

Sic transit gloria mundi... :-(

Nokia CEO and the Board must be quite self confident, not doing anything drastic nowadays ;-)

[zlutor]

maybe waiting for Jolla's announcement? ;-)
http://jollatides.com/2012/11/08/potential-partners-licensing-jolla-sailfish-os/

[newbie reader]

// I never knew Lenovo made smartphones

This is only their second Q as a smartphone manufacturer.

They started from their home market and already in top 10 on domestic China sales only. And now they're expanding to other 3rd world markets like India, Russia etc.

Lenovo is sure bet for safe #4 spot next Q

It is also interesting, where Huawei numbers come from.

[newbie reader]

// Samsung
// It feels as if Smartphones and tablets are run from different companies

And not only Samsung, other vendors also. Until recently the best tablet would probably be iPad running Android :-)

But that time is over now, the real tablet game just started this year!

See Nexus etc.

[Simmons]

Nokia is dead LÄLÄLÄÄ !!

Perttu L. in Nokia haista sina isu paska!

[Mr Eric Wu]

Tomi, how can you write this posting without even saying it? HE MUST BE FIRED!

BTW, can someone explain me the meaning of "THT Elop"? I always wondered what THT stood for?

br,

Mr Eric Wu.

[Tichernan]

Microsoft is used to impose, they dont know how to deal with competition and all they can do is give a check to solve the things.

Too bad that check was not enough for Nokia. And i think Google and Samsung needs to give Elop a big check, he did a good job helping them to consolidate Android(and Linux) very quickly and also Samsung's climb to the top was thanks to his mistakes.

[Tarun Jain]

Tha limited success in Tablet market is a tell tale story of depth of phone success of a company. Anyone using a dumb phone can buy a smartphone, start using the phone part and explore where additional bells and whistles take them, even if that not being the best experience. There is no such priming available for tables and so it has to be genuinely good and usable tablet to succeed. Unless Samsung (and google) can make it work for tablets, after getting familiar with smart phone, customers will continue to slowly move on to iPhone and become loyal to that ecosystem. Google, Apple and Microsoft are all vying for the ultimate harmony among Mobil devices and PCs. Google is struggling with PC, and Microsoft is struggling with Phone. Only Apple has advantage of both which keeps the long term balance tilted in its favor. We will see if others can pull it off or Apple's execution aces them. Tomi, do you know how many customers are moving dumb phone to Android to iPhone path vs other way around (iPhone to Android)?

[Winter]

MS seems to have given up on smartphones. They now will deliver a version of Office for Android and iOS.

That was their last card in the game. And rather than lose Office to a Google/Apple competitor they throw WP8 for the bus.

[khim]

Tarun Jain: Tha limited success in Tablet market is a tell tale story of depth of phone success of a company.

What "limited success" are you talking about? Android went from nowhere to 50% of market in smartphones in three years - and it was considered "smashing victory". Now it does the same with tablets in the same timeframe and you are talking about "limited success"?

Give it time.

Tarun Jain: Tomi, do you know how many customers are moving dumb phone to Android to iPhone path vs other way around (iPhone to Android)?

iPhone owners are quite loyal so far (that is: most Android users switch from dumbphones, not from iPhones), but this also is starting to change.

Don't forget that this is not the first time when Apple developed something which took market by storm (think PowerBook... and without Steve Jobs, even) and then lost said market to other, less expensive competitors. That's just how it works.

Why iPod was an exception is interesting question, but it's already clear that neither iPhone nor iPad are working this way so far.

P.S. It actually took two years for the Android to go from zero to 49% in tablets so you may argue that Google does it even faster in tablets, but this is allusion: Apple did "iPhone^H^H^H^HiPad nano^H^H^H^Hmini" trick which Tony advocated for years and thus stalled this magic 50% point for half-year to year. In the end Android will need three years to reach 50% in tablets - exactly as it did with smartphones.

[AtTheBottomOfTheHilton]

About RIM and BB10. One of the biggest question mark right now is RIM and if BB10 is going to be a success, which over shadows the status of Nokia since many have now accepted that Nokia is finished. What I've seen with BB10 is that it shows great promise, every preview of the operating system shows that it is a very solid user experience and will please many customers both simple and advanced users. I expect that RIM will gain traction again in the mid 2013. BB10 will get the rumor of being pleasant but the adoption will be slow because people who are not techies will not know about it. BB10 will be the third mobile operating system and will dethrone Windows Phone from that position (I expect Windows Phone to become the third during a short period).

As for Windows Phone, well it already flopped and no version 8 is going to change that. So are we going to wait for Windows Phone 9 for it to become successful? Maybe 10, 11?

[newbie reader]

With Moto out, there are only asian Android vendors in top 10.

[newbie reader]

Top Five forecast for Q4 and next year.

Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Lenovo are the first four, in that order. (If Tomi's huawei numbers are correct) It may take until Q1 for Lenovo to make itself a clear #4. Huawei and Lenovo could also switch positions or even eventually overtake Apple.

Then there is a very interesting competition for #5: Sony, HTC, LG, ZTE, RIM

Each of these companies has a unique strategy:

Sony is current leader of the pack, oldest of them all.
HTC is the first true android innovator.
LG is samsung's sibling.
ZTE, chinese whiteboxes.
RIM, another proprietary OS.

Success of any of these at taking #5 would mean some definite trend of the market.

Sony: good old ways still work here.
HTC: cool innovation products still matter
LG: smartphones are essentially screens and household appliances
ZTE: smartphones are commodities.
RIM: there is more market space outside Android/iOs than most people think.

If that particular trend will grow even stronger, that company could climb further, to top four. (ZTE is exeption to this rule)

Would Nokia be a unique Win8 vendor, it could be listed here under "win8 success trend". It is not, since win8 success or failture, it means almost nothing for poor Eloped Nokia...

PS. and my guess on THT is Trinotrotoluol, an excellent explosive. :)

[Eduardo]

@Tomi

"most massively data-driven US election ever"

Speaking of which, the Repubicans had a massive double data failure in poll predictions and Orca.

[Winter]

@Eduardo
When you watch Fox news you know the cause if the loss of Romney: People came out to vote.

If the people would just have stayed home, the GOP and their pundits would have won.