Global sales of smartphones surpassed feature phones in 2013: Gartner

Worldwide sales of smartphones surpassed sales of feature phones for the first time in 2013, according to a new report from research firm Gartner.

Sales of smartphones accounted for 53.6 per cent of overall global mobile phone sales in 2013, and exceeded annual sales of feature phones for the first time, said yesterday's report from Gartner.

Global sales of smartphones totalled 968 million units in 2013, an increase of 42.3 per cent from 2012.

Smartphone sales grew 36 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2013 and accounted for 57.6 per cent of overall mobile phone sales in the fourth quarter, up from 44 per cent year over year.

Gartner said that this increase of smartphone sales was led by growth in Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, Asia/Pacific and Eastern Europe, where smartphone sales grew by more than 50 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2013.

With a 166.8 per cent increase in the fourth quarter of 2013, India had the highest smartphone sales growth among the countries tracked by Gartner, while Latin America saw the strongest growth among all regions (96.1 per cent) in the fourth quarter.

China also contributed significantly to worldwide smartphone sales, which grew 86.3 per cent in 2013.

In the fourth quarter of 2013, mobile phone sales in mature regions fell due to weaker demand.

"Mature markets face limited growth potential as the markets are saturated with smartphone sales, leaving little room for growth with declining feature phone market and a longer replacement cycle," said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. "

Although Samsung smartphones share were up in 2013, they fell slightly by 1.6 percentage points in the fourth quarter of 2013, mainly due to a saturated high-end smartphone market in developed regions, while its biggest competitor Apple saw strong sales of its iPhone 5s and strong demand continued for the iPhone 4s in emerging markets, which helped the US tech giant see record sales of 50.2 million smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2013.

"However, Apple's share in smartphones declined both in the fourth quarter of 2013 and in 2013, but growth in sales helped to raise share in the overall mobile phone market," said Gupta. "With Apple adding NTT DoComo in Japan for the first time in September 2013 and signing a deal with China Mobile during the quarter, we are already seeing an increased growth in the Japanese market and we should see the impact of the last deal in the first quarter of 2014."

Chinese handset manufacturers Huawei saw its smartphone sales grow by 85.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2013 to maintain the No. 3 spot year over year, while Lenovo saw smartphone sales increase by 63.1 percent in the same period.

Gartner said that Lenovo's Motorola acquisition from Google will give Lenovo an opportunity to expand within the Americas.