Who knows the Chinese are really going to conquer the globe. Recently, in the fourth quarter analysis of the year 2010 regarding handset sales all over the globe, ZTE lands a spot higher than Apple and overtakes and grabs the spot form the said company. Chinese vendor ZTE is now the world’s number 4. This is according to a research firm. ZTE has not just pushed down Apple from the number four spot down to 5th spot but nudged Research In Motion (makers of Blackberry) out of the top 5 handsets of the world. Certainly, China products are making their mark in the whole world.
This movement in rankings goes to show that it is really a slippery slope. The volatility of the nature of the top 5 marketers in the industry will make the manufacturers up on their toes every time. This has already been the third major change in the ranking in the past few months but the striking kick was that of ZTE bolting out RIM and Apple and grabbing the top 4 spot.
“Change-up among the No. 4 and 5 vendors could be a regular occurrence this year,” said Ramon Llamas, an analyst at IDC. “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.”
Let us look at the figures according to IDC. There were 401.4 million units shipped in the fourth quarter. This was a good sign because the stats went up 17.9 percent from the 340.5 million shipped same quarter last 2009. All in all vendors shipped a staggering 1.39 billion units worldwide last 2010. It is up 18.5 percent from last 2009’s stats. In short, business is doing good for everyone. But the question is, who is getting the large share of the pie.
ZTE was able to take advantage of the situation and got a whopping 76.8 percent increase from their previous year’s sales. In record, this is the second highest, fastest and biggest growth rate in handset manufacturers sales in the world. Apple has held the top record which sold 16.2 million iPhones which is an 86.2 percent increase. The top three spots are strongly held by Nokia, Samsun and LG respectively.
With 2011 on its way, feature phones are to flock the market. Smartphones will be released left and right. Who gets the higher slice of the pie this end year analysis, it is up to the manufacturers how they will make their products sell like pancakes.
Here are the top 5 mobile phone vendors for the last quarter of 2010
Nokia sold an overall unit volume to 2.4% in the fourth quarter.
Samsung pushed through with their 80 million unit threshold for the first time.
LG crossed the 30 million unit sales for the quarter, because of Optimus.
ZTE grabbed the 4th position with steady shipments from China to Africa and Latin America.
Apple slipped to number 5 despite a record quarter for unit shipments.
