According to IDC, the mobile phone market has seen a 6% growth compared to the same time last year. The latest stats show that vendors have shipped a total of 432.1 million mobile phones during this previous quarter, up from 407.7 million units during Q2 of 2012.
The interesting thing is that much of the growth seen by companies is happening at the lower-end of the market. Companies such as Huawei and do-you-remember-us-Alcatel, had very high double and even triple digit growth during this quarter. And of course there's LG, which has been having a string of good news lately, and even Lenovo seeing over 100% growth compared to last year. This goes to prove that while Apple and Samsung have the high-end cornered there is still a lot of room of room for companies to grow.
We’ve actually seen this same thing happen with Windows Phone. As you know we’ve been reporting that the Lumia 520/521 has seen tremendous growth, becoming the best-selling Windows Phone to date, and that’s mainly because of its very low price and its premium quality. And Nokia is trying to do it once again with the launch of the Lumia 625, a massive phone for developing markets. Ramon Llamad, research manager with IDC, touched on this very point by saying:
Lower-priced smartphones continue to gain traction, but the key for vendors will be to keep prices low while still offering premium devices and services. We fully expect to see large-screen smartphones and other flagship devices establish a presence within the lower-priced smartphone segment as well.
There is absolutely no doubt that Android is dominating the smartphone market, but as you can see from the chart above there’s a strong possibility that Nokia makes it back in the top 5 phone manufacturers next quarter, which would mean Microsoft’s Windows Phone has become mainstream.
We’ll have to wait and see how the smartphone market evolves but one things for sure: low-end is where all the action is.
Source: IDC | Table via IDC
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