Worldwide Smartphone Shipments Up 28%

Despite economic woes, people are snapping up smartphones at a record pace. Shipments of smartphones worldwide hit a new peak of just under 40 million units in the third quarter of this year, according to the latest estimates from market research firm Canalys.

All but one of the top five smartphone makers increased the number of devices they shipped during the quarter, a couple of them substantially.

Smartphones now represent around 13% of the total mobile phone market, up from 11% in the previous quarter.

Apple Is Up, Nokia Is Down

Naturally, Nokia is still on top of the global smartphone market, a position it has held for many years. However, it's competitors are cutting into its lead.

It had 39% of the market last quarter, down from 51% in the same quarter of 2007. It was the only one of the top 5 smartphone makers to see a decline in shipments, from 16.0 million in Q3 of 2007 to 15.5 million last quarter, a 3.4% decline.

Apple, on the other hand, saw its Q3 shipments increase dramatically year-over-year, from 1.1 million in 2007 to 6.9 million this year. That's 523% growth. This was enough to propel Apple from a 3.6% share of the world smartphone market to 17.3%.

Apple not only beat RIM, but he total number of iPhone 3Gs shipped during this period is higher than the combined total of shipments of Windows Mobile devices from all Microsoft's licensees.

RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, has been pushed into third place by Apple's rise, but it still increased its shipments 83.5%, year over year. Last quarter it shipped 6.1 million units, up from 3.3 million in Q3 of the previous year. It now has 15.2% of the global smartphone market.

Pete Cunningham, Canalys senior analyst, commenting on RIM's quarter, said "This is a tremendous performance, especially considering the delays it experienced in rolling out the Blackberry Bold. Some customers will also have been waiting for the [BlackBerry] Storm to arrive. With these new products and the clamshell Pearl 8220 available in Q4, it is quite feasible that RIM will return to the number two position.”

Motorola went from 2.1 million smartphone shipped in the third quarter of 2007 to 2.3 million last quarter, giving it 5.8% of the market, a small decline in its overall share.

HTC also saw its shipments increase strongly, though not quite as dramatically as Apple. According to Canalys, HTC shipped 850,000 smartphones during Q3 of last year and grew this to 2.3 million in a year, putting it in a virtual tie with Motorola.

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