Nokia Oyj, the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, lost market share as smartphones continued to outpace growth in the overall handset market, Gartner Inc. said in a report.
Nokia’s share of global sales to end users fell to 34.2 percent from 36.8 percent in the year-earlier period, according to the Stamford, Conn.-based market researcher. Smartphone sales gained 50.5 percent, more than three times the growth for the market as a whole.
Google Inc.’s Android overtook Apple Inc.’s iPhone to become the third-biggest smartphone platform after Nokia’s Symbian and Research In Motion Ltd.’s Blackberry, which had 17.2 percent of the market. Symbian, also used on some phones from other vendors, lost almost 10 percentage points of market share to 41.2 percent as Nokia struggled to revamp it and bring out new products.
“Nokia’s senior executives need to do more to attract developers and other ecosystem members by revising its platform strategy and improving its communications,” Gartner said.
Apple’s iOS fell behind Android to fourth place among smartphone platforms with a 14.2 percent market share as the iPhone 4 ramped up production.
Android was helped by “a nonexclusive strategy that produces products selling across many service providers, and the backing of many device manufacturers who are bringing more attractive devices to market at several different price points,” Carolina Milanesi, a research vice president at Gartner’s Egham, U.K. unit, wrote in the report.
The overall mobile phone market increased 13.8 percent to 325.6 million units as prices fell on tougher competition, Gartner said. Samsung Electronics Co. maintained its position as the second biggest mobile-phone vendor overall with a 20.1 percent market share, up from 19.3 percent last year. Apple gained to 2.7 percent of the market, making it the world’s seventh-largest phonemaker.