Micromax in top 10 as global smartphone sales reach 478 mn units

New Delhi: Driven by growth in emerging markets, global mobile phone shipments in July-September 2015 reached 478 million units and Indian brand Micromax was among top 10 handset vendors, research firm Gartner said Wednesday.

"Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totalled nearly 478 million units during the third quarter of 2015. Continued growth in emerging markets helped bolster sales of local brands. As a result, Micromax Informatics cemented its place among the top 10 global mobile phone vendors," Gartner said.

The sales were up by 3.7 percent during the third quarter of 2015 from the same period in 2014, the firm said.

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Micromax's sales jumped over two-fold to 12.16 million units in the reported period compared to 5.6 million units in the same period a year ago, the report said.

Samsung maintained its global leadership with sales growing by about 9 percent year-on-year to over 102 million units and was followed by Apple which registered 20.6 percent growth in sales at over 46 million devices.

Microsoft Devices occupied third spot globally with sale of 30.29 million devices in the reported quarter despite decline of about 30 percent in its sales compared to the third quarter of 2014.

Microsoft was followed by Huawei, LG Electronics, Lenovo, Xiaomi, TCL Communications and ZTE in terms of unit sales in July-September 2015 period.

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Global sales of smartphones to end users increased by 15.5 percent to around 353 million units in the third quarter of 2015 compared to same period in 2014 driven by more consumers opting for smartphones in emerging markets.

"The availability of affordable smartphones in emerging markets saw consumers upgrade their 'feature phones' to smartphones more quickly because of the small price gap," Gartner Research Director Anshul Gupta said.

Smartphone sales in emerging markets alone increased by 18.4 percent to 259.7 million in the third quarter of 2015 over the third quarter of 2014.

"Sales in mature markets saw growth of just 8.2 percent over the same period," Gupta said.

While Samsung and Apple also led smartphone segment globally with sale of 83.58 million and 46 million units, Huawei registered the highest growth rate of 71 percent in the category and occupied the third spot.

Chinese handset maker Huawei sold 27.26 million smartphones in the reported quarter of 2015 compared to 15.93 million smartphones it sold a year ago. 

In the smartphone operating system (OS) market, Apple's iOS continued to see strong performance and grew 21 percent, above market average.

Android platform gained 1.4 percentage points in share year over year due to strong smartphone sales from Samsung and Huawei globally, the firm said.

Android platform led global market with 84.7 market share followed by Apple's iOS with 13.1 percent share, Windows 1.7 percent and BlackBerry 0.3 share.

Windows smartphone market share dropped from 3 percent to 1.7 percent year over year.

"Despite the announcement of Windows 10, we expect Windows smartphone market share will continue to be a small portion of the overall smartphone OS market as consumers remain attracted by competing ecosystems," Gartner research director Roberta Cozza said.