Gartner Says Sales of Mobile Devices Grew 5.6 Percent in Third Quarter of 2011; Smartphone Sales Increased 42 Percent
Android OS Rose to Account for More Than 50 Percent of Smartphone Sales — Worldwide sales of mobile devices totaled 440.5 million units in the third quarter of 2011 …
Context & Ripple Effects
A year ago Gartner's Q3 2010 tally showed smartphone sales nearly doubling, up 96 percent year over year. The new Q3 2011 numbers mark the deceleration point: total mobile device sales grew just 5.6 percent to 440.5 million units, and smartphone growth cooled to 42 percent — still strong, but half the prior pace.
The headline shift inside those numbers is platform, not volume: per Gartner, Android crossed the 50 percent mark for smartphone sales in the quarter. What was one of several competing OSes in 2010 entered Q4 2011 as the majority platform by units sold.
First-order effects
- Android's majority share makes it the default build target for handset makers and app developers, while rivals Symbian, BlackBerry and iOS are now competing for the minority of units sold.
- With total device growth at 5.6 percent against 42 percent smartphone growth, the feature-phone segment is contracting outright — vendors dependent on it, most visibly Nokia, are selling into a shrinking base.
Second-order effects
- Carriers and component suppliers re-weight toward Android volumes, improving Google's leverage over carrier terms and giving Android-first manufacturers like Samsung and HTC scale advantages in parts procurement.
- Rival platforms face pressure to consolidate or differentiate: Symbian licensees and BlackBerry must either cut prices to defend share or accelerate transitions to newer OS strategies.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the market structurally splits into an Android majority plus a small set of scaled alternatives, pushing hardware margins down and shifting value toward services, apps and ecosystem lock-in rather than device sales themselves.
The trend: Smartphone growth is normalizing from its 2010 hypergrowth phase even as Android converts that volume into durable majority-platform status, squeezing every other OS into niche or premium positions.