Samsung & Android Extend Lead Over Apple iPhone in Q2

Samsung extended its lead over Apple’s iPhone in the mobile phone market during the second quarter, according to a report from Gartner. The research firm also found that Android as a whole extended its lead over the iPhone, though iPhone itself also gained share.

All told, the mobile handset market—which includes both features and smartphones—declined by 2.3 percent from the same a year ago. Mobile handset makers sold some 419 million devices, down from 428.7 million in the June quarter of 2011.

Gartner said the market slowed in part as many customers are waiting for high-profile product launches in the second half of the year, namely Apple’s expected release of the iPhone 5. The research firm said that these devices, plus a 3G push in China, should push handset sales in the second half of 2012.

Total Handset Share

Apple’s share of this market increased dramatically, from 4.6 percent in 2011 to 6.9 percent in 2012. That’s a sharp rise for the iPhone maker in percentage terms, but Samsung saw a sharper rise in its share. According to Gartner, Samsung had some 21.6 percent of the market, up from 16.3 percent, leaving the company firmly in the top spot of hardware markets.

Nokia was #2, with 19.9 percent, down from 22.8 percent in the year ago quarter. ZTE, LG, Huawei, TCL, HTC, Motorola, and Research In Motion all followed with low single digit numbers for their share.

Smartphone Share

Gartner also broke numbers out for the smartphone market, a market that saw year-over-year growth of 42.7 percent, far outpacing the handset market as a whole.

Measured this way, Apple is #2, with iOS claiming 18.8 percent of the smartphone market. That’s a small increase over the year ago quarter of 18.2 percent.

Android, on the other hand, ‘sploded, rising from 43.4 percent of the market to 64.1 percent, as shown in the chart below. That growth came at the expense of Nokia’s now-dead Symbian OS (5.9 percent, down from 22.1 percent) and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry (5.2 percent, down from 11.7 percent).

 

Gartner Smartphone Share

Worldwide Mobile Device Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2Q12 (Thousands of Units)
Chart by The Mac Observer from Gartner Data

Note that Microsoft posted a rare year-over-year gain, going from 1.6 percent share to 2.7 percent. Samsung’s proprietary OS also rose, going from 1.9 percent share to 2.7 percent.