NEW YORK: The rate of growth of worldwide mobile phone sales remained flat at 0.4 (year over year), according to the latest data released by research firm Gartner. The mobile phone sales to end users totalled 446 million units during the second quarter of 2015 (April-June) of which 330 million units were smartphones.
All models combined (not only smartphones), Samsung has sold 88 million mobile phones across the globe in the second quarter, far ahead of Apple (48 million), Microsoft (27.6 million), Huawei (26.1 million) and LG (17.6 million).
Indian mobile phone maker Micromax features on the list at the 10th spot with 9.9 million units sold in the April-June 2015 quarter.
However, Microsoft’s market share dipped from 9.9% (43.8 million units) in the corresponding quarter last year to 6.2%, while Micromax registered a rise from 1.9% (8.6 million units) to 2.2%.
In spite of its Windows platform accounting for a mere 2.5% of the worldwide smartphone sales, Microsoft’s Asha range of feature phones still remains popular in parts of the developing world, though that popularity is also witnessing a steady decline.
According to Gartner, vendors who are focused on the emerging markets, such as Huawei, ZTE, TCL Communication and Micromax, benefited from high demand in these markets, while global vendors such as Sony, Samsung and HTC struggled to achieve growth at the high end of the market.
The worldwide sales of smartphones in the second quarter also grew at the slowest pace since 2013 as sales in China declined for the first time.
