Smartphones Sales Topple Feature Phones, Thanks to Latin America, Says ... - Latin Post ~ Electronic Gadgets

History has been made in the mobile phone business as smartphone sales have surpassed feature phone sales for the first time.

According to Gartner, a leading information technology research and advisory company, smartphones accounted for 53.6 percent of the overall mobile phone sales in 2013, which exceeded the annual sales of feature phones. Gartner revealed the global sales of smartphones to end users reached 968 million units during 2013, which is an increase of 42.3 percentage points from 2012's figure of 680 million.

Apple, Huawei, LG Electronics, Lenovo, and Samsung have helped pave the way for smartphone sales' increase worldwide.

According to Gartner's report, Samsung topped its rivals as the No. 1 vendor in 2013 with nearly 300 million smartphones sold last year. Samsung's sales represented 31 percent of the market share. For the Galaxy S4 company, sales are up from 2012 when approximately 206 million smartphones were sold, or 30.3 percent of the market share was accounted for.

Apple ranked third, and despite selling more iPhones than in 2012, the company saw a drop in its market share. Apple sold 151 million smartphones during 2013, per Gartner's data, which is an increase from the 130 million purchased in 2012. Apple's market share fell from 19.1 percent to 15.6 percent.

Taking advantage of Apple's market share percentage drop was Huawei, LG Electronics, and Lenovo, which saw both a sales and market share increase. Huawei and LG Electronics tied with 4.8 percent of the market share in 2013, which are increases from the 4 percent and 3.8 percent in 2012, respectively. Huawei narrowly sold more smartphones with 46.6 million units to LG Electronics' 46.3 million sold.

Lenovo placed fifth with 4.5 percent of the market, which is an increase from 2012's 3.2 percent. Lenovo sold 43.9 million smartphones, which is more than double from the 21.7 percent during 2012.

Gartner attributed Latin America as one of the regions leading the smartphone sales' growth especially during the fourth quarter of 2013. Along with the Asia and Pacific block, Africa and the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, the Latin American region saw smartphones sales grow by 50 percentage points. Specifically, Latin America saw the most growth among all regions with 96.1 percent during the fourth quarter. Worldwide smartphone sales increased by 36 percent. The sales increase in the aforementioned regions led to smartphones to account for 57.6 percent of the overall mobile phone sales in the fourth quarter, which is an increase from 44 percent during the same period in 2012.