Global Phone Market Grew By 11.3% Year Over Year In 2Q2011

Across the globe, mobile devices are being sold like hot cakes. The market is expanding and phones are driving some new industries. From North America to Asia, vendors are shipping millions of units. It simply means that the market is healthy and will continue like that for years.

A new report has that the  global mobile phone market grew 11.3% year over year in 2Q11.  The report, from IDC noted that vendors shipped about 365.4 million units in 2Q11 compared to 328.4 million units 2Q10. Yet, the feature phone market shrank 4% in 2Q11 when compared to 2Q10.

“The shrinking feature phone market is having the greatest impact on some of the world’s largest suppliers of mobile phones,” said Kevin Restivo,an IDC analyst.  “Stalwarts such as Nokia are losing share in the feature phone category to low-cost suppliers such as Micromax, TCL-Alcatel, and Huawei.”

“For the overall market to grow by double digits year over year, despite the decline in feature phones, is testament to the strength of the global smartphone market,” noted Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC’.  “While this is not a new trend – smartphones have been the primary engine of growth for the last several quarters – it does mark something of a transition point, as demonstrated by the growing number and variety of smartphones featured in the vendors’ portfolios.”

The breakdown of the growth by vendor is provided below.

Source: IDC Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, July 28, 2011

Note: Vendor shipments are branded shipments and exclude OEM sales for all vendors