IDC: Western Europe buys fewer phones, prefers Android to iOS

The phone market in Western Europe has shifter in Q1 2013, reports analyst firm IDC. In what has been the quarter of slowest market growth since 2004, feature phone shipments fell 31% to just 12 million and even smartphones took a hit.

Android makers are on the rise – Samsung, Sony and LG all saw their market shares grow, while Apple and Nokia saw a decline. Apple did overtake Nokia, but both companies lost ground – 11% and 30% respectively.

The economic environment has cut into people's budgets for new phones, but the lower sales also led to carriers cutting subsidies. This is part of why premium smartphones (like the Apple iPhone) haven't been doing too hot recently.

The people buying smartphones are different too – IDC has dubbed them "the second wave". Basically, the first wave consisted of people looking to buy a smartphone. The second wave is people who were content with their feature phones, but most phones on display are smartphones (which have also fallen to feature phone price levels).

Top Western European Mobile Phone Vendors, Total Shipments and Market Share, 1Q13 Smartphones and Feature Phones (Units in Millions)

Vendor	1Q13 Unit Shipments	1Q13 Market Share	1Q12 Unit Shipments	1Q12 Market Share	1Q13/1Q12 Change
1. Samsung	19.9	46%	18.1	40%	10%
2. Apple	6.2	14%	7.0	15%	-11%
3. Nokia	6.1	14%	8.7	19%	-30%
4. Sony	3.2	7%	1.9	4%	64%
5. LG	2.5	6%	0.9	2%	178%
6. Others	5.7	13%	8.9	20%	-36%
Total	43.6	100%	45.5	100%	4%

Anyway, Samsung has expanded its smartphone market share to 46% compared to 40% in Q1 last year. The second place smartphone vendor, Apple, dropped from 15% to 14% and Nokia fell to third place, going from 19% to 14% (but with 100K shipments less than Apple).

Then come Sony and LG, which have seen big growths in their market shares. However, if you take out feature phone shipments, Sony and LG leapfrog Nokia. Sony has no feature phones and LG has shipped about 100K. The situation with Lumia, however, seems pretty dire – Nokia has shipped 6.1 million phones in Q1 in total, 1.6 million of which were smartphones.

Top Western European Mobile Phone Vendors, Shipments and Market Share, 1Q13 Smartphones (Units in Millions)

Vendor	1Q13 Unit Shipments	1Q13 Market Share	1Q12 Unit Shipments	1Q12 Market Share	1Q13/1Q12 Change
1. Samsung	14.3	45%	10.9	39%	31%
2. Apple	6.2	20%	7.0	25%	-11%
3. Sony	3.2	10%	1.6	6%	100%
4. LG	2.4	8%	0.5	2%	380%
5. Nokia	1.6	5%	2.3	8%	-30%
6. Others	3.9	12%	5.9	20%	-34%
Total	31.6	100%	28.2	100%	12%

According to IDC again, things in India are looking up – the mobile phone market grew 24% year over year. It's an Android lock out there, the OS controls 90% of the market. Samsung holds to top position in terms of shipments, followed by local brands Micromax and Krabonn. Apple (which never had a strong presence in India) fell out of the top 5.

Source 1 • Source 2 | Via