It was a record-breaking year for smartphones. Device makers shipped more than 700 million units worldwide in 2012, the largest number to date, according to a recent report from Strategy Analytics.
The top seller, Samsung, led the field with its own record-breaking numbers. Boosted by the popularity of its Galaxy line, the company shipped 213 million smartphones in 2012, the largest number by any smartphone vendor in a single year.
Still, even with the these impressive numbers, the 43% growth rate in overall smartphone sales was not enough to top previous boom years.
“Global shipment growth slowed from 64% in 2011 to 43% in 2012 as penetration of smartphones began to mature in developed regions such as North America and Western Europe,” said Neil Shah, senior analyst at Strategy Analytics.
Despite Samsung’s $1 billion loss to Apple in court, the Korean device maker still beat its American rival in the marketplace, capturing 30% of the market. Apple, which released its much anticipated iPhone5 in September, ended the year with 135.8 million shipments worldwide and a 19% market share—the same share it had the previous year.
Neil Mawston, Strategy Analytics’ executive director said that Apple grew a “healthy” 46% annually.
“Apple had a strong year in developed regions like North America, but this was offset partly by its limited presence in high-growth emerging markets such as Africa,” he said.
Just two short years ago, Nokia set the record that Samsung just broke when it shipped 100.1 million during 2010. Now, the struggling Finnish company finds itself stuck in third place behind Samsung and Apple and falling further behind. Nokia’s market share sunk from 16% to 5% during the last year, according to Strategy Analytics.
Nokia launched its new Lumnia 920 this year and recently returned to profitability, but Strategy Anlalytics analyst Linda Sui believes that the company “still lacks a true hero model in its range that can be considered an Apple iPhone or Samsung S3 killer.”
