Q1 Numbers in Bloodbath Year Four: Smartphones Galore

Time for the Q1 numbers. I'm posting this from the airport and only can do the top-line numbers now, but want to post them at least, so my readers can find the numbers they are waiting for. I'll update this soon and add all the usual detail you expect. For those who want to see the previous period numbers ie Q4 of 2012, they are here.

 

Note, I had reported that Blackberry has fallen out of the Top 10 being replaced by rapidly growing Yulong ie Coolpad (ie China Wireless). The growth of Yulong is true, but in the end it wasn't Blackberry that fell out, it emerged that HTC has had an even worse quarter. Blackberry stayed in the Top 10 by the skin of its teeth, its HTC that fell out of the Top 10 smarpthone manufacturers. Here's the Top 10 for Quarter 1, 2013:

BIGGEST SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURERS BY UNIT SALES IN Q1 2013

Rank . . Manufacturer . Units . . . Market Share . Was Q4 2012 . . OS systems supported (coming)[ending]
1 (1) . . Samsung . . . . 69.0 M . . 32.4% . . . . . . . ( 29.4% ) . . . . . . Android, bada, Windows (Tizen)
2 (2) . . Apple  . . . . . . 37.4 M  . . 17.6% . . . . . . . ( 22.0% ) . . . . . . iOS
3 (3) . . Huawei  . . . . . 10.5 M . . . 4.9% . . . . . . . (   5.5% ) . . . . . . Android (Tizen)
4 (7) . . LG  . . . . . . . . 10.3 M . . . 4.8% . . . . . . . (   4.0% ) . . . . . . Android
5 (5) . . Lenovo  . . . . . . 8.9 M . . . 4.2% . . . . . . . (   4.3% ) . . . . . . Android (Tizen)
6 (4) . . ZTE  . . . . . . . . 8.6 M . . . 4.0% . . . . . . . (   5.3% ) . . . . . . Android, Windows (Firefox)
7 (6) . . Sony . . . . . . . . 8.1 M . . . 3.8% . . . . . . . (   4.0% ) . . . . . . Android
8 (11) . Coolpad/Yulong . 7.1 M . . . 3.3% . . . . . . . (   2.8% ) . . . . . . Android
9 (10) . Nokia . . . . . . . . 6.1 M . . . 2.9% . . . . . . . (   3.0% ) . . . . . . Windows, [Symbian], [MeeGo]
10 (9) . Blackberry . . . . 6.0 M . . . 2.8% . . . . . . . (   3.2% ) . . . . . . Blackberry
Others . . . . . . . . . . . 48.1 M
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . 213.0 M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 17 May 2013, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

(More analysis coming soon, just posting the numbers now from the airport)

BIGGEST SMARTPHONE OPERATING SYSTEMS BY UNIT SALES IN Q1 2013

Rank . OS Platform . . . . Units . . . . Market share . Was Q4 2012 . . Manufacturers in Top 10
1 (1) . . Android . . . . . . . 159.0 M . .  74.6 % . . . . . ( 68.5 %) . . . . . Samsung, Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Sony, LG, Yulong/Coolpad
2 (2) . . iOS  . . . . . . . . . . 37.4 M . .  17.6 % . . . . . ( 22.2 %)  . . . . . Apple
3 (4) . . Windows Phone . . 6.3 M . . .  3.0 % . . . . . (  2.7 %) . . . . . . Samsung, Nokia
4 (3) . . Blackberry . . . . . . 6.0 M . . .  2.8 % . . . . . (  3.2 %) . . . . . . RIM
5 (5) . . bada  . . . . . . . . . . 1.8 M . . . 0.8 % . . . . . (  1.4 %) . . . . . . Samsung
6 (6) . . Symbian  . . . . . . . 0.5 M . . . 0.2 % . . . . . (  1.0 %) . . . . . . Nokia
others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.0 M . . . 0.9 % . . . . . (   1.0 %)
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . 213.0 M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 17 May 2013, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

(Analysis coming shortly)

INSTALLED BASE OF SMARTPHONES BY OPERATING SYSTEM AS OF MARCH 31, 2013

Rank . OS Platform . . . . Units . . . Market share  Was Q4 2012  . Main Manufacturers of current base
1 . . . . Android . . . . . . . 823 M . . . 57 % . . . . . . ( 53 %) . . . . . . Samsung, Huawei, Sony, ZTE, LG, Lenovo, Motorola, SonyEricsson 
2 . . . . iOS  . . . . . . . . . 277 M . . . 19 % . . . . . . ( 19 %) . . . . . . Apple
3 . . . . Symbian . . . . . . 165 M . . . 11 % . . . . . . ( 15 %) . . . . . . Nokia, Sharp, Panasonic, Fujitsu, Samsung, SonyEricsson
4 . . . . Blackberry  . . . . . 97 M . . . . 8 % . . . . . . (   8 %) . . . . . . RIM
5 . . . . Windows Phone . . 28 M . . . 2 % . . . . . . (   2 %) . . . . . . Nokia, Samsung, ZTE
6 . . . . bada . . . . . . . . . . 27 M . . .  2 % . . . . . . (   2 %) . . . . . . Samsung
7 . . . . Windows Mobile . . . 5 M  . 0.3 % . . . . . . (   0.5 %) . . . . . . HTC, Samsung, LG, SonyEricsson, Palm, Motorola
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 M . . .  1 % . . . . . . (   1 %)
TOTAL Installed Base . 1,439 M smartphones in use at end of Q1, 2013
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 20 May 2013, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

(more data coming soon, gotta go board my plane now..)
(ps - Thanks 'Winter' for spotting the typo. cheers!) 

Comments

[przemoli]

Doing simple math (all Nokia is WinP, and Nokia have 80% of WinP market) I got 3,6% for WinP market. That is way below of what IDC, reported. That made me notice that there is no info about source of data.

Tomi is it "traditional" big four?

[Ckris]

Przemoll, good catch. As Nokia still sold some Symbian Pureviews, this is more of discrepancy.

[Kamil]

IDC has Windows Phone at 3.2%, Gartner at 2.9%. Seems good to me.

[Tester]

There is no discrepancy. Tomi said '2% WP8 market share'.

And since current WP sales still have a significant WP7 percentage, WP8 will most definitely be below 2%.

[Hansu]

Intresting the positions from 3-10 are only separaretd by around 4 million in sales that means that if someone has a good quarter and the other one bad the positions could change pretty fast

[przemoli]

"IDC has Windows Phone at 3.2%, Gartner at 2.9%. Seems good to me."

Ok maybe I took tablet numbers for phone numbers then..

[chithanh]

@AndThisWillBeToo
You seriously interpret his tweet as "Microsoft total smartphone share will never raise above 2% as long as they sell Windows Phone 8"? Interesting.

But even a 2% forecast is still "the most accurate forecast". Gartner predicted last year that Windows Phone would have 10.4% share in 2013, a number that seems way out of reach now (unless WP8 sees 100% QoQ marketshare growth or so).

[AtTheBottomOfTheHilton]

What I have observed is that where I live which is not a key market, the availability of the Blackberry BB10 device is very low. Retailers don't have them and you have to order them online at specialized stores. The availability of Windows phone is very high though. They are everywhere and in any store and here is no problem to get one at all. Despite of this very few people are buying them which is not strange as the UI looks like it is designed for training monkeys (http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/images/news2/Do-Monkey-Talk-2.jpg). If Blackberry wants to get market share they must work on the availability and learn from Samsung when it comes to releasing a product and then making the product available quickly world wide.

[Kenny]

What about this analyst here who claims WP will overtake Android by 2013? With 7 months more to go any chance of it coming true? :-}

http://bgr.com/2011/05/10/windows-phone-will-beat-android-in-2013-analyst-explains/

[Tester]

@leebase:

Aren't you a bit quick to dismiss Blackberry? I'd first wait a quarter or two to see how their new OS fares.

The first quarter is barely representative because it only partly contains BB10 and only in a few markets while BB7 sales dropped in anticipation of the new OS. I'd say Q2 and Q3 will tell the real story how it goes.

Regardless, I don't see them regain their former glory as well - but I wouldn't write them off yet.

As for Nokia: I doubt they can survive on Lumia alone - and if the feature phone market implodes like it looks right now, they may get into trouble again. They are still the only manufacturer with a strong reliance on feature phones so they are far more vulnerable than any other company in this list.

[Spawn]

@AndThisWillBeToo

~3% WP market share, 1/3 are WP7 making WP8 market share ~2%. This isn't only most accurate but to the point hit. Take into account that we are talking here about so incredible small volumes that Elop buying another Lumia for his children (which they decline again) lets there share jump notable.

[przemoli]

@leebase
Did Nokia profited from their sales?
Did BB profited from their sales?

Will exNokians return to Nokia now?
Will exBBs return to BB now?

Will first-timers choose Nokia?
Will first-timers choose BB?

Answer those questions before you give the verdict.

(Yes Nokia can only give one "YES", but competition for that answer will be bigger in coming Q's -> Tizen, Firefox OS, Ubu?)

[Tester]

@leebase:

>> Nokia isn't strong for sure...but I think they've weathered the storm.

I disagree. Not for Lumia which looks to be stable. The concern with Nokia is the feature phone market and its ongoing disintegration.

Nokia is the only major manufacturer with larger feature phone volume than smartphone volume - and that entire market is disappearing. They are so desperate that they declare their high end Asha featurephones smartphones just to save some business.

As for Blackberry, just answer one question: How do current BB sales compare with the first few months of Windows Phone 7? That's what you need to compare with. It's a completely new OS so give it at least some time to let people make up their mind before declaring it a failure. I think it's vastly premature to do so.

If it still doesn't show some signs of life in half a year I'll happily concur that Blackberry is toast. Not yet, though.

[RottenApple]

@Kenny:

Tomi took care of that 'analysis' long ago in quite outspoken terms. I don't have the link handy but it's in here somewhere.

@AndThisWillBeToo:

If you got nothing to contribute but trolling, that will inevitably happen!

[Kenny]

RIM is in a better position than Nokia. First of all RIM is a much smaller company than Nokia and doesn't need a very high volume of sales to survive. RIM does not share the BB10 market with anybody else, does not need to pay any license fees and earns from the app store. None of these are true for Nokia.

Furthermore RIM controls both os and hardware and is in a better position to respond to users' feedback. Nokia is helpless to do anything about the myriad os deficiencies and missing basic features despite widespread complaints from users. One example is the lack of data monitoring function which is built into all other os. The only way WP8 users can monitor data usage is if their carrier support "DataSense" (a MS produced app) and allows them to have it.

Nokia selling 5 million Lumia a quarter is never going to be profitable. Their smartphone division has been subsidized by Symbian, MeeGo and Asha phones. Both Symbian and MeeGo have been killed off and Asha sales are in free fall so Nokia is in real trouble. Even dumb phone sales are collapsing.

[Peter]

@Tomi: You are taking an average of the big 4, right? But Gartner is reporting sales to end users and the others are reporting shipments.
If you compare the numbers of Gartner and IDC - Windows Phone has 7 mio shipments in IDC and 5.989 mio sales in Gartner. Not a very good sales through rate. As oposed to BB which is reported by IDC with 6.3 mio shipments an by Gartner with 6.218 mio sales.
What's your opinion on the validity of the Gartner sales figures?
And if Gartner is true, what do 5.989 mio sales für WP mean for Nokia?

[przemoli]

@AndThisWillBeToo

Yes or No, but Samsung could afford to bring Bada OS to 0% of market share. And most probably they needed to.

Tizen will use Samsung Andorid UI. And (most probably) Samsung will try to swap Tizen with Android. Bada OS would only get in the way. As both Tizen and Bada are made primary for low-end.

Symbian did not get in the way of Windows Phone. Only if you consider that Symbian was selling well, and was bringing profits. Then you may consider it enemy of "new" WinP as it would sell much less, and bring even smaller amount of profits. (And People would ask why t** h*** Nokia isn't capitalizing that Symbian with MeeGo for example.)

So if we where to compare, Samsung to Nokia. It would be something like that:

Samsung ROCK sales. But deem current OS (Android) unsatisfactory. So they develop OS for switch over with good capabilities and some migration path (Tizen, with same UI, and who-knows if not Android app compatibility). But then there is change over in Samsung leader ship. Current selling and profitable OS (Android) is being called burning platform, OS destined for migration (Tizen, with same UI, and who-knows if not Android app comp.) will be released on just one handset, and after that discontinued. And Samsung will choose Bada OS made by 3rd party (its not, but for purpose of comparison it must be since Nokia do not make WinP), which have nothing to do with current Samsung offerings, wont run on current Samsung hardware, wont use current Samsung assets (app store, maps, etc.).....

See the difference?

Samsung is choosing OS that can give it competitive advantage. WITHOUT disruption to their business.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

To all in thread

Its again my heaviest time in consulting/travel in the spring season right now, so I'm struggling just to do the very top-most news.

Of comments, obviously, ignore the trolls, I'm reading all comments and will clean out the nonsense when I next have a moment (like now).

If you only read the comments, note that I already added the OS market share numbers, I hope to add the installed base also shortly

For those gloating about Windows with 3% or in 3rd place - yeah, enjoy it while you can. Nokia now accounts for almost 9 in 10 WP smartphones sold, and Nokia global market share - thanks to carrier boycotts - is still shrinking continuously. The total Symbian massacre is now baked into the Lumia numbers - 30 million quarterly sales of Symbian has been converted to 6 million Lumia. Thats total disaster. Nokia's global market share is still shrinking, so because Windows Phone is nearly completely now only Nokia, as Nokia diminishes, so does Windows Phone. My 2% prediction was for full year 2013, and the trend looks very likely to end up around there, not near this 3% right now..

More coming later, keep up the good discussions here

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Winter]

@Baron95
"Number 3 already? In Q1?"

The last thing that dies is hope, it seems.

[Hansu]

So let me get this straight sales boycott means shrinking marketshare altough the actual sales numbers are going up for WP each quarter and are predicted to go up O_o