ZTE overtakes RIM to become fifth biggest mobile manufacturer

Nokia loses almost 10 per cent market share as Apple grows

RIM's woes continued on Thursday after new figures from Gartner showed that the company was overtaken by Chinese manufacturer ZTE in terms of global mobile phone sales during the second quarter, and has dropped to sixth place.

ZTE's share rose from 1.8 to three per cent between the second quarter of 2010 and the same period in 2011, while RIM's share dropped from 3.2 to three per cent. ZTE shipped 13 million units, outselling RIM by around 500,000 units.

Gartner principal analyst Roberta Cozza told V3 that ZTE's growth is built on serving low-end markets with budget smartphones, and that RIM's problems are down to a number of failings that point to a tough future for the company.

"RIM's portfolio is quite old now and it has had delays in getting new products to market. The BlackBerry Messenger service is still a strong offering, but rivals like Apple are launching their own message application to compete in this area," she said.

"RIM also has two platforms to manage [BlackBerry 7 and QNX], while there has been very little change in its management structure. We would expect to see some increase in sales in the fourth quarter when the Curve portfolio is widened."

ZTE is planning to enhance its brand in the UK, recently announcing a tie-up with major distributor Brightpoint to bring its devices to market during 2011.

ZTE overtakes RIM to become fifth biggest mobile manufacturer

Nokia loses almost 10 per cent market share as Apple grows

Nokia maintained its top position in the mobile phone market, but again saw a huge slump in market share, dropping from 30.3 to 22.8 per cent as its once dominant position continues to ebb away.

"The Windows Phone 7 devices that start to hit the market at the end of 2011 won't have much impact on Nokia. It will only be when there are several devices on the market that we may see a change in its sales performance," Cozza said.

Apple, meanwhile, went from strength to strength during the quarter, its market share almost doubling to 4.8 per cent and sales hitting just short of 20 million thanks to strong demand for the iPhone 4 launched in June 2010.

Android vendors had mixed fortunes, according to the Gartner figures. Samsung increased sales by four million to 69 million, but its share dropped 1.5 per cent to 16.3 per cent. HTC saw shipments more than double from 5.9 to 11 million.

LG fared worst, its market share dropping 2.3 per cent and sales falling almost five million between the two quarters.

"Samsung and HTC have managed to differentiate themselves among the Android markets with the products they offer, but other firms, such as LG, have struggled to make an impact and face a tough future," Cozza said.

The figures from all vendors combined to help worldwide sales of mobile devices hit 428.7 million, up 16.5 per cent from the second quarter of 2010, with smartphone sales still on the up at the expense of feature phones.

"We expect smartphone sales to continue to grow in 2012 as customers switch from feature phones. Some markets, like the UK, are already past the 60 per cent mark, but nations like Italy still have plenty of growth to come," said Cozza.