It seems that 20% more smartphones have been sold in Q3 2014 globally in comparison with the previous quarter. This was revealed in the latest report from Gartner, one of the more credible research agencies out there. According to it, 301 million smartphones have made their way from the manufacturers' factories straight to the end users' pockets. This has been in the expense of feature phones, the sales of which have reportedly suffered a great decline, with the main blow been given by the ever-decreasing prices of the entry-level Android troopers.
This ratio between sold smartphones and feature phones has been obviously enough to account the former with 66% of the handset market for Q3 2014. What's more, Gartner predicts that at this rate, by 2018 only 10% of all sold phones will be feature ones.
Of the 310 million smartphones sold globally during the period, 83.1% (250 million phones) ran on Android. That's an increase in comparison with Q3 2013, when Google's OS powered “merely” 205 million handsets globally. Apple's iOS can be found on 12.7% of all smartphones sold in Q3 2014 (38.1 million iPhones). Despite the fact that more Windows Phone have been sold in Q3 2014 than the year before, Microsoft's market share has taken a small hit – from 3.6% last year to 3% in the last quarter.
As far as smartphone vendors are concerned, there are little to no surprises. The global leader, Samsung, continues its downfall – from 25.7% of the mobile phone market in Q3 2013 (117 million units sold), Sammy has collapsed by roughly 5% down to 20.6% (just 94 million units shipped). Nokia, which is already part of Microsoft, suffered a blow, too – from 63 million units sold in Q3 2013 to 43 million in Q3 2014.
Apple and Xiaomi are some of the two noteworthy market share winners. Cupertino has sold 38 million iPhones in Q3 2014 (up from 30.3 million in Q3 2013), while Xiaomi has increased its sales by 336% year-over-year, selling 15.7 million units in Q3 2014. It seems that the latter has been nudged from its third spot on the smartphone market in Q3 2014 - not by Lenovo, as we had heard, but by Huawei. The battle for the third place, as we can see in the table above, is pretty tied.
We are more than curious to get treated to a report that will show us what's the current state of the smartphone market in Q4 2014. Such a report will show us if the sales of the Galaxy Note 4 have made a dent in the company's poor sales; it'll also show us if Apple has continued its record-breaking streak of iPhone 6/6 Plus sales. However, we'll have to wait a little for such a report, as the quarter is not over just yet.
