According to the latest data from Gartner, worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled nearly 426 million units in the first quarter of 2013. Year over year, these figures represent another uptick in growth (+0.7%).
Worldwide smartphone sales totaled 210 million units in the first quarter of 2013, up 42.9 percent from the first quarter of 2012.
The Asia/Pacific region was the only region to show growth in mobile phone sales this quarter, with a 6.4 percent increase year-on-year.
“More than 226 million mobile phones were sold to end users in Asia/Pacific in the first quarter of 2013, which helped the region increase its share of global mobile phones to 53.1 percent year-on-year,” explains Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner.
“In addition,” the analyst says, “China saw its mobile phone sales increase 7.5 percent in the first quarter of 2013, and its sales represented 25.7 percent of global mobile phone sales, up nearly 2 percentage points year-on-year.”
Gartner asserts that the Chinese and local manufacturers “have been exemplary” at addressing the demands of buyers by offering affordable devices with optimum features.
