Global cell-phone shipments rose 17 percent year over year to 314.7 million units in the first quarter, buoyed by robust smartphone sales, according to Gartner analysts. Smartphone sales to end users soared 48.7 percent to 54.3 million units — the strongest year-on-year increase since 2006.
Smartphones accounted for 17.3 percent of all mobile handset sales in the first quarter — up from 13.6 percent in the same period last year. Apple’s iPhones, Research In Motion’s BlackBerry handsets, and smartphones based on Google’s Android OS all proved to be big winners in the first three months of the year.
“The first quarter was Apple’s strongest quarter yet, which placed the company in the No. 7 position with a 112.2 percent increase in mobile-device sales,” noted Gartner Research Vice President Carolina Milanesi.
Android’s U.S. Surge
During the first quarter, Android displaced Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform in the number-four global smartphone slot for the first time, Milanesi noted. Moreover, Android was the biggest winner in the U.S. market, where it displaced Apple’s iPhone OS as the number-two smartphone platform by growing its market share by nearly 22 percentage points year over year to 26.6 percent.
“Android’s momentum continued into the first quarter of 2010, particularly in North America, where sales of Android-based phones increased 707 percent year on year,” Milanesi said.
BlackBerry sales reached 10.6 million units in the quarter — a 45.9 percent year-on-year increase. “This quarter saw RIM, a pure smartphone player, make its debut in the top five mobile-device manufacturers, and saw Apple increase its market share by 1.2 percentage points,” Milanesi said.
RIM’s focus on its ecosystem strategy — together with its tightly integrated control of store, OS and device — played to RIM’s strengths on a global basis during the first quarter, Milanesi noted. In the United States, however, RIM saw its…