The sales of mobile phones in Brazil decreased 15.3% in the third quarter of 2012 over the same period last year, according to a study conducted by IDC. A total of 15.3 million mobile devices were sold in Q3, of which 4.2 million were smartphones. Google’s Android led as the most popular operating system.
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Bruno Freitas, supervisor of research at IDC Brazil, said that the market showed a sharp drop in sales of feature phones (those without operating systems) while smartphones continued to grow. According to Freitas, there was a 28.5% drop in the market for conventional devices and 65% growth in smartphone sales compared to the same period last year.
IDC attributed the rise of smartphone sales in the country to vast portfolios of smartphones as well as telecom operators’ efforts to “create a strong movement” to offer this type of device and increase the sale of services such as data plans. Retail is another sector that showed growth in smartphone sales.
Regarding operating systems, devices with Google’s Android accounted for 80% of the sales volume in the third quarter, and IDC pointed out that the trend indicates that this number will keep increasing even more. Freitas noted that by 2014, devices with the Android operating system should surpass feature phones, given the transformation the IT market is undergoing with the explosion of social networks and the migration to mobile devices.
He also said that prices have driven the market. Users who have bought a feature phone in the past now have the option to buy a smartphone with more inviting prices, he added.
According to the study, smartphones priced below $340 (R$700) in the third quarter of 2010 represented 27% of total sales while currently they account for 64%.
By the end of the year, IDC expects that 59 million handsets will have been sold, of which 16 million will be smartphones and 43 million feature phones. This figure is 11% lower than that reported in 2011.
(The currency exchange rate used in this story was $1 USD = R$2.0702)
