Samsung leads as smartphone sales exceed 200 million in Q4 2012

By Stephen Fenech On Jan 26, 2013

Smartphone shipments for the fourth quarter of 2012 exceeded 200 million units according to Juniper Research with Samsung accounting for one in three sales.

Samsung enjoyed a record quarter with 63 million units that accounted for 30 per cent of all shipments for the quarter.

And it was the Galaxy S III which drove growth with 40 million worldwide sales in November alone.

Apple also had record quarterly sales of 47.8 million iPhones which was slightly lower than expectations

Juniper Research analysts say Apple needs to continue focussing on innovation while retaining its strong brand leadership.

The fourth quarter of 2012 took the years total of smartphone sales to 671 million – a 42 per cent increase on 2011.

There was some good news for Nokia as well with sales of 6.6 million smart devices – 4.4 million of these coming from the new Lumia line of products.

Nokia’s smartphone shipments slumped 54 per cent from 77 million in 2011 to 35 million in 2012.

The Finnish company recorded a $3 billion dollar loss for the year but posted a $586 million profit for Q4 2012.

Research In Motion’s BlackBerry will account for 6.7 million smartphone shipments in Q4 2012 and 31 million for the year.

The BlackBerry 10 operating system and a new range of devices are due for release next week but Juniper Research says the company will struggle to regain significant market share.

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