Smart finally beats dumb, smartphones hitting 51.8 percent of global sales in Q2

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In the circles most of us hang out, it might seem incredible that featurephones – aka dumb phones – were still outselling smartphones until recently, but that was indeed the case right up to the first quarter of this year. The latest Gartner figures show that smartphones finally broke ahead in Q2, achieving 51.8 percent of worldwide phone sales.

Smartphones accounted for 51.8 percent of mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013, resulting in smartphone sales surpassing feature phone sales for the first time,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. Asia/Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe exhibited the highest smartphone growth rates of 74.1 percent, 55.7 percent and 31.6 percent respectively, as smartphone sales grew in all regions …

There was good news for both Samsung and Google in the figures … 

Samsung’s year-on-year market share increased by two points to 31.7 percent, meaning it now sells more than twice as many handsets as its leading rival Apple. The news comes close behind huge growth by Samsung in the tablet market.

Though Apple’s anticipated launch of two new handsets next month – the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C – mean that Samsung is unlikely to maintain such a commanding lead. Gartner says Samsung also faces increasing pressure from low-cost Android handsets in emerging markets.

Android, meantime, grew its market share by almost 15 percent, to hit 79 percent.

And if you were in any doubt as to why Blackberry is looking for a buyer, even Windows Phone sales by Microsoft outstripped those of Blackberry …

Via TechCrunch