It may be hard to believe, but the second quarter of 2013 is the first quarter that smartphones outsold feature phones. Yeah, those little flip phones that your grandparents buy from AARP. Gartner reports that smartphones finally took the lead in Q2, grabbing 51.8% of worldwide phone sales.
Smartphones accounted for 51.8 percent of mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013, resulting in smartphone sales surpassing feature phone sales for the first time,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. Asia/Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe exhibited the highest smartphone growth rates of 74.1 percent, 55.7 percent and 31.6 percent respectively, as smartphone sales grew in all regions.
Apple actually lost ground in year-on-year marketshare, dropping more than four points to 14.2%. Apple’s position in the marketplace is due to improve this fall, with the expected introduction of the new “iPhone 5S,” and the budget minded “iPhone 5C.”
Also of note, Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform pulled into the passing lane, usurping BlackBerry for the first time, to take third place. Windows Phone took a 3.3% global marketshare in Q2 vs. 2.7% for the quickly fading BlackBerry.
