While Apple loyalists waited for the newest iPhone to arrive, Samsung Electronics nabbed the top spot in smartphone sales for the third quarter. According to the latest research from the analysts at IHS , Samsung shipped an estimated 27.3 million smartphones last quarter, a 44% increase from the second quarter. Apple shipped just 17 million smartphones last quarter, but analysts expect that number to skyrocket in the fourth quarter now that the iPhone 4S is available.
As the table below shows, Samsung’s smartphone sales have taken off during the past year, more than tripling in the past 12 months. The company has taken market share from Nokia, which has seen a decline in smartphone sales during 2011. Nokia did manage a slight increase in sales during the third quarter, but IHS says higher sales won’t mean higher profits because Nokia had to slash prices. “Nokia may have stopped its market-share decline-but this came at the sacrifice of its pricing,” said Wayne Lam, senior analyst for wireless communications at IHS. “The average selling price of the company’s smartphones declined 7.8 percent sequentially in the third quarter, taking a toll on profitability.”
| Top-3 Global Smartphone Brands in the Third Quarter of 2011 (Ranking by Shipments in Millions of Units) |
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| Q3 ’11 Rank | Brand | Q3 ’10 Shipments | Q3 ’10 Share | Q2 ’11 Shipments | Q2 ’11 Share | Q3 ’11 Shipments | Q3 ’11 Share | |
| 1 | Samsung | 7.8 | 9.6% | 19.0 | 17.5% | 27.3 | 23.2% | |
| 2 | Apple | 14.1 | 17.4% | 20.3 | 18.7% | 17.1 | 14.6% | |
| 3 | Nokia | 26.5 | 32.7% | 16.7 | 15.3% | 16.8 | 14.3% | |
| Others | 32.7 | 40.3% | 52.8 | 48.5% | 56.3 | 47.9% | ||
| Total | 81.1 | 100.0% | 108.8 | 100.0% | 117.5 | 100.0% | ||
| Source: IHS October 2011 | ||||||||
These numbers will look much different by year’s end. Apple is expected to sell 30 million iPhones this quarter, bringing its total for the year to 30 million units.
