Report: Apple slips in mobile market, remains in top five
Despite ZTE's surge, the horse race to win one of top five spots in shipments and market share is one that can easily change from quarter to quarter, IDC noted."Change-up among the number four and five vendors could be a regular occurrence this year," Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team, said in a statement. "Motorola, Research In Motion, and Sony Ericsson--all vendors with a tight focus on the fast-growing smartphone market who had ranked among the top five worldwide vendors during 2010--are well within striking distance to move back into the top five list."Overall, the global mobile phone market rose 17.9 percent in the fourth quarter compared with 2009's final quarter. Collectively, vendors shipped 401.4 million units in the quarter versus 340.5 million a year ago.For 2010 as a whole, the industry saw shipments of 1.39 billion units, a jump of 18.5 percent from the 1.17 billion shipped in 2009.The surge in annual shipments came courtesy of an improved economy and a wider selection of more affordable smartphones, helping the industry enjoy its highest annual growth rate since 2006.Looking ahead, the worldwide mobile phone market will continue to be boosted by demand for smartphones."Feature phone users looking to do more with their devices will flock to smartphones in the years to come," Kevin Restivo, a senior IDC research analyst, said in a statement. "This trend will help drive the smartphone sub-market to grow 43.7 percent year over year in 2011."
