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IDC: Samsung continues to lead smartphone growth, doubling shipments from last year

IDC: Samsung continues to lead smartphone growth, doubling shipments from last year

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Smartphone buyer's guide lineup
Smartphone buyer's guide lineup

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given their recent earning reports, Samsung and Apple have continued to extend their lead in smartphone through the last quarter. While Apple lists its iPhone sales clearly in its earnings releases, Samsung does not. Luckily, research firm IDC has today released its take on mobile and smartphone shipments over the last quarter. It says Samsung shipped a total of of 56.3 million smartphones between July 1st and September 30th, up a staggering 100.4 percent from the same period last year and 12% more than Q2 2012. Apple also saw significant growth year-over-year, with shipments rising from 17.1 million to 26.9 million — a 57.3 percent increase. As a whole, smartphone shipments grew by 45.3 percent, year-over-year, rising by 56 million to reach a total of 179.7 million. Of that 56 million, two thirds can be attributed to Apple and Samsung alone.

The rest of the pack all saw shipments drop in Q3

So how did the rest of the pack fare? IDC only reports the top five smartphone vendors in its charts, giving us a somewhat blinkered view of the industry. RIM, which notably fell out of the top five last quarter, are back in third position with 7.7 million shipments. While that sounds like a big win for the Canadian company, 7.7 million wouldn't have made it into the top five in Q2, and the figure is down 34.7 percent from last year. Fourth place is ZTE, which shifted 7.5 million smartphones, up 82.9 percent year-over-year but down six percent from last quarter. In fifth is HTC, which posted another set of troubling financial results this morning. The Taiwanese manufacturer shipped 7.3 million smartphones, down from 12.7 million last year and 8.8 million in Q2.

Only Samsung and Apple are winning right now

Notably missing from the top five is Nokia, which sat in third place last quarter with 10.2 million smartphone shipments. According to Nokia's own sales figures, the company managed to sell just 6.3 million in Q3. Nokia also fell further behind in overall mobile phone shipments, with 82.9 million units versus Samsung's 105.4 million. While analyst figures aren't an exact science, they do give us a good approximation of what the mobile landscape looks like and where it's heading. Despite the constant jockeying for position between the smaller companies, perhaps the clearest takeaway from IDC's figures is that Samsung and Apple's continued growth is coming largely at the expense of the likes of Nokia, HTC, RIM, and others.