Consumers worldwide grabbed up an astonishing 325.6 million mobile devices in the second quarter, up 13.8 percent from the same period a year ago, a study by Gartner Research suggests. Smartphones accounted for 19 percent of those sales, a 50.9 percent increase over last year, showing a vital market for the devices as manufacturers and carriers seem to roll out new models and features nearly every month.
But Gartner’s vice president of research, Carolina Milanesi, told us the boom may not last long as the market matures.
“Overall growth is stimulated by new sales in emerging markets as well as replacement sales in mature markets,” said Milanesi. “After last year, when we saw no growth in the market due to the economy, sales have picked up but remain lower than in previous years, excluding the anomaly of 2009.”
Average sales prices, Gartner noted, were lower than expected, due in part to a stronger dollar, declining euro, and strong competition.
Impact Of Tablets
The second quarter also saw the debut of Apple’s iPad and a slew of other tablet devices. But Gartner found that mobile devices with larger screens and some of the same functionality as a smartphone didn’t make much of a dent in handset sales.
“We believe that most tablet users still feel the need for a truly pocketable, yet highly capable, device for those situations when it’s inconvenient to carry a device with a larger form factor,” Milanesi said.
Gartner’s rating of the top manufacturers of the quarter put Nokia in its usual place on top, with a seemingly untouchable 34.2 percent — or 111,473,800 units sold — though that share dropped slightly from 36.8 percent last year. Samsung is the next closest competitor at 20.1 percent of worldwide sales, or 65,328,200 units. The biggest movement was HTC’s debut in the top 10 at number…