Global demand for cellular handsets and smartphones boomed during the third quarter, with both Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android platform enjoying an upsurge in sales, according to a new report from Gartner. However, the robust market greatly benefited from accelerating sales of so-called ‘white-box’ handsets manufactured in Asia.
The “others” category in Gartner’s latest mobile-market report led the field with a 33 percent share of the 417 million cell phones shipped, followed by Nokia (28 percent) and Samsung (17.2 percent). And despite not having the backing of a well-known brand name, white-box product sales grew 35 percent from the previous quarter and have more than doubled over the past year, according to the research firm.
“This is having a profound effect on the top five mobile handset manufacturers’ combined share,” which “dropped from 83 percent in the third quarter of 2009 to 66.9 percent in the third quarter of 2010,” said Gartner Research Vice President Carolina Milanesi.
No Short-Lived Phenomenon
According to Gartner, white-box manufacturers continued to expand their reach outside of China during the third quarter to include markets such as India, Russia, Africa and Latin America. And Milanesi sees no sign of a white-box slowdown any time soon.
“We firmly believe this phenomenon will not be short-lived, as we still see a continuing need for non-3G devices,” Milanesi said. “We expect an even bigger volume in the fourth quarter of 2010.”
Nokia’s share of the global handset market declined 8.5 percentage points from the same period last year, the research firm’s analysts noted. Given that Nokia has considerable exposure at the low end of the cell-phone market, consumer adoption of white-box products may have been partially responsible.
Nokia’s sales also suffered from short supplies of components for lower-cost devices, such as camera modules and displays. Still, the limited availability of low-end Nokia handsets…