Chinese telecoms giant Huawei has secured third spot in 2012 global smartphone sales, after selling 27mn smartphones last year, a 74 per cent increase more than the year before, according to Gartner
Global smartphone sales reached 208mn in Q4 2012, a 38 per cent increase over the same period in 2011.
Global sales of mobile phones, on the other hand, were 1.75bn in 2012, representing a fall of 1.7 per cent.
Ahead of their competitors were Samsung and Apple, with a total market share of 52 per cent in Q4, a rise from 46 per cent in Q3.
Smartphone sales in general reported a record fourth quarter in 2012, however, sales of feature phones fell 19 per cent year-on-year to 264mn.
Gartner expects that feature phone sales will fall further in 2013, while smartphone sales will reach “close to one billion units”.
Huawei has recently expanded to Africa, which is one of its fastest growing markets outside of China, to launch low-cost smartphones.
The Huawei ’4Afrika’ smartphone will be available in Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Angola, Morocco and South Africa “towards the later part” of Q1 and is expected to cost around US$150.
