It’s something that many have predicted but nobody thought would happen anytime soon. According to IDC, sales of smartphones have surpassed that of feature phones in the first quarter. Samsung is leading the race, with Apple, LG, Huawei and ZTE in the top 5.

Samsung’s shipments increased 60.7 percent to reach 70.7 million smartphones and that has helped the South Korean company to get 32.7% of the market share. Apple’s iPhone 5 helped the Mac maker to grow 6.6% to 37.4 million handsets, but their market share dropped to 17.3% from 23%.

Samsung certainly has gained by flooding the market with cheaper Android devices. And the variety of hardware configurations they bring out is an answer just about anyone’s needs (rugged S4 anyone?).

In the third spot is LG, with the Google Nexus 4 among the company’s most popular handsets. The company has 4.8 percent of the market. But where is Nokia, which until last year was a global leader for 14 years? Although their Lumia shipments have grown, that hasn’t helped them with market share. Nokia and BlackBerry have been pushed out of the top 5 by Huawei (4.6%) and ZTE (4.2%).

Nokia, as you might know, is very fond of feature phones, but smartphones have taken over the stage. Nokia should evolve and expand its smartphone line if they plan to get back to the top again. Kevin Restivo, IDC senior research analyst, says, “Phone users want computers in their pockets. The days where phones are used primarily to make phone calls and send text messages are quickly fading away. As a result, the balance of smartphone power has shifted to phone makers that are most dependent on smartphones“.

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It doesn’t take a genius to realize that the growing mobile market has cut into PC sales in a pretty big way over the last few years. While PC sales have been declining for a while, new IDC estimates show that for the first quarter of 2013, the market fell a whole 13.9 percent.

Looking back, this is the largest drop down reported by IDC in its entire history of tracking the PC market, which goes back to 1994. According to IDC, the biggest factors for this larger level of decline is that customers are spooked by the changes found in Windows 8, combined with the rise of mobile devices and the fact that the netbook pretty much went extinct.

While Windows 8 might be part to blame, that’s not the whole story. Apple Mac computers haven’t exactly jumped up in sales either, after all. The bigger picture is that more consumers are waking up to the fact that they don’t need $800+ machines in order to live in our socially-driven, web-connected world. Unless your needs are demanding (business, gaming, etc) – you can easily get by with a smartphone or tablet in today’s world. Hell even a web-connected game system or PC might be enough for many folks out there.

Additionally, PC declines are being brought on due to the fact that many of the PCs out there are more expensive than what many people were buying a few years ago. Why is that? Netbooks are pretty much extinct (at least from major, known vendors) and instead vendors are pushing ultrabooks and touch-capable devices.

Of course there is a reason for that. Although there is probably still limited interest in the netbook, it never exactly had great profit margins and as fewer people were buying premium home computers, it became less and less profitable for vendors to continue offering netbooks. Higher-end PCs generally command higher profit margins. That and lower-end PCs often aren’t much better for many consumers than purchasing a similarly priced tablet or high-end smartphone.

Bottom-line is that the PC market isn’t going to grow again in the forseeable future, unless something crazy happens like people drop interest in smartphones and PCs. Instead, vendors need to understand that the PC market will soon be a secondary business with their main focus needing to be mobile.

The bigger question is whether Dell, HP and other major vendors has what it takes to truly make the move over to a mobile focus.

What do you think of the PC market decline? Is it over-exaggerated, or conversely do you feel that Microsoft and its vendors are too blame due to not bringing enough interesting products to the market to win back desktop and laptop consumers? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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The post PC Shipments for Q1 Drop 13.9%, Steepest Drop in IDC’s PC Tracking History appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Even though the Huawei products may not exactly be the flagship smartphones offered by your local cell phone carrier, Huawei has made its presence known and let’s not forget about the massive market that it can enjoy in its home China. Indeed, Huawei’s year-over-year change for units shipped in Q4 was a remarkable 89.5%. That being said, it still only has a 4.9% overall market share as of Q4 2012.

The overall smartphone market continues to grow, so even though the market share numbers have only moved a few percentage points, the year-over-year change for units shipped has increased almost across the board. Samsung is sitting in the top spot with 29.0% market share with a 76.0% increase in units shipped. Apple is second with a 21.8% market share and a 29.2% increase in shipments. Sony is fourth with 4.5% market share and interestingly enough, another Chinese company, ZTE, rounds out the top five with its 4.3% market share.

Yes, Apple and Samsung continue to dominate the smartphone world with a combined 50% of the market and Huawei is a distant third with its 4.9%, but it really is amazing how this seemingly “second tier” brand has propelled itself onto the smartphone podium in such a short amount of time. Remember that they’re beating out what we may otherwise consider to be heavy hitters like HTC, LG and Motorola.

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The post Huawei Propels Itself to Become 3rd Biggest Smartphone Maker appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Data was compiled by Bloomberg and IDC for the number of handsets shipped in Canada. In 2011, RIM shipped 2.08 million BlackBerry smartphones; Apple was able to ship 2.85 million iPhones over the same period. Contrast that to 2008 when RIM outperformed Apple by a ratio of five to one. The shift has been steady and clear since then.

It’s not just in its native Canada that Research in Motion is hurting. Even though the BlackBerry still holds its place in the Middle East and Indian markets, that market share is quickly dwindling as consumers increasingly shift to Android smartphones, particularly those from Samsung.

The hope is that the QNX-powered BlackBerry 10 smartphones (you might know them as BBX) will reverse the trend, but I’m not exactly staying optimistic. It’s not like the PlayBook has been a white knight for the Waterloo, Ontario company either.

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The post New King of the Hill: iPhone Outships BlackBerry in Canada appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

RIM's popular BlackBerry Bold QWERTY candybar

Even though it may feel like Apple is taking the mobile world by storm, the Cupertino-based company doesn’t even crack the top five when it comes to global sales. A Canadian company, however, has cracked the top five, and that’s none other than Research in Motion.

This is huge news for the BlackBerry-maker, because Research in Motion is the only smartphone-focused cell phone company to make it into the top five internationally. The other four companies in the list — Nokia, Samsung, LG, and Sony Ericsson — have more of their handset sales outside of the smartphone realm. They do “feature phones” and “budget phones” for emerging markets, for example.  But when it comes down to rapid deployment, corporate workforce, and security, RIM takes the cake.

According to the IDC, Research in Motion shipped a total of 10.6 million units in the first quarter of this year. That represents a 3.6% international market share and an impressive year-over-year growth of 45.2%. BlackBerry is very much on the rise.

Not surprisingly, Nokia is still tops with nearly 108 million units shipped in Q1 2010. That’s with 15.7% year-over-year growth and a 36.6% market share.

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