Todd’s Spin on Gartner’s 2Q09-2Q08 Cellphone & Smartphone Sales Numbers: Things Looking Pretty Good

There’s been a lot of response this Gartner Research press release…

Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Declined 6 Per Cent and Smartphones Grew 27 Per Cent in Second Quarter of 2009

So, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to add my own spin to their numbers the the conclusion drawn from it.

Here’s an easy one to start with: Nokia is bleeding significantly in overall phone sales (feature phones and smartphones) no matter how you look at the numbers. But, this is an important point to remember. The next thing to note is that Nokia’s sales amount to 39.5% of all phone sales in 2Q09. And, Nokia sales were 12.5% down compared to 2Q08. So, let’s subtract Nokia from the total and look at the overall phone market again. When, we do this, sales figure are still lower. However, instead of a 6% decline we see a 2% decline. This not good news. But, it is actually somewhat encouraging given the horrible state of the world economy between those two quarters.

Now, let’s take a look at Gartner’s smartphone market numbers. While Nokia lost marketshare in this important segment, their sales of smartphones rose by 20.6%. This is quite respectable. If we again subtract Nokia out of the smartphone market, 2Q09 smartphone sales rose by 32.7% compared to 2Q08. Again, the numbers look better than the overall smartphone sales dragged down (relatively speaking) by Nokia’s numbers. Apple’s iPhone had, of course, a spectactular gain of nearly 609% in sales when comparing 2Q09 to 2Q08.

Overall, I think these numbers are quite promising. The 3Q09-3Q08 comparison may be more meaningful since this will include a full quarter of sales for the iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre, and various new Android phones.

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