Gartner on Thursday revealed that global smartphone shipments have achieved their highest share ever recorded.
Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled 455.6 million units in the third quarter of 2013, an increase of 5.7 percent from the same period last year.
But the real fireworks came in the smartphone product category.
According to Gartner, sales of smartphones accounted for 55 percent of overall mobile phone sales in the third quarter of 2013, and “reached their highest share to date.”
Worldwide smartphone sales to end users reached 250.2 million units, up 45.8 percent from the third quarter of 2012.
Once again, Asia/Pacific led the growth in both markets – the smartphone segment with 77.3 percent increase and the mobile phone segment with 11.9 percent growth.
“Sales of feature phones continued to decline and the decrease was more pronounced in markets where the average selling price (ASP) for feature phones was much closer to the ASP affordable smartphones,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. “In markets such as China and Latin America, demand for feature phones fell significantly as users rushed to replace their old models with smartphones.”
Gartner estimates that global mobile phone sales are on pace to reach 1.81 billion units in 2013, which is up 3.4 percent from 2012.
