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IDC and Gartner: Lenovo leaps past Dell for second place, still trails HP for the gold
IDC and Gartner have come out with their latest Q3 rankings of the world's PC manufacturers, which means it's time for us to do some dissecting. Not much changed at the top of the heap, where, according to IDC, HP still rules the roost with about 18 percent market share (despite that whole PC biz spinoff thing). But the most dramatic shift came from Lenovo, which scurried past Dell for second place, with 13.7 percent market share (13.5, according to Gartner) -- a 36.1 percent jump from the third quarter of 2010 (25.2 percent, says Gartner). Dell's pie slice, on the other hand, shrunk slightly to 12 percent this quarter, down from 12.6 percent last year. On the global scale, meanwhile, PC sales increased by about 3.6 percent compared to Q3 2010 (3.2 percent, in Gartner's books), though both research firms acknowledged that this figure was well below their respective projections. Why? IDC points to several economic factors, including the threat of a double-dip recession, while Gartner blames the rise of "non-PC devices," including tablets. Surprise!
Smartphones out-ship feature phones in Europe, Samsung leads the way
It was probably gonna happen sooner or later, but a new report from IDC confirms it: smartphones are now out-shipping feature phones in western Europe. According to the company's statistics, only 20.4 million feature handsets were shipped to the Old World during the second quarter of this year, representing a 29 percent decrease from Q2 2010. Quarterly shipments of smartphones, on the other hand, increased by 49 percent to 21.8 million units, marking the first time that they've surpassed basic phone orders. Smartphones also comprised 52 percent of all mobile shipments, which shrunk by three percent, collectively -- something IDC's Francisco Jeronimo attributes, in part, to Europe's brutal economic climate and Nokia's steep decline (see chart). On the OS front, Android once again came out on top within the region, thanks to a whopping 352 percent year-to-year increase in shipments, while Samsung controlled the manufacturing side, with 33 percent of the European market. You can find more IDC math in the full PR, after the break. [Thanks, Pauly]
China inches ahead of US in PC sales for the first time
We may be living in a "post PC" world according to some, but PCs are unquestionably still big business, and they're now a bigger business in China than anywhere else. That's according to the latest report from market research firm IDC, at least, which found that both PC sales and shipments in China inched ahead of those in the US for the second quarter -- the first time that's ever happened, and earlier than IDC had previously projected. In terms of hard numbers, that translates to sales of $11.9 billion in China (compared to $11.7 billion in the US), and shipments of 18.5 million units, which represents a 14.3 percent jump year-over-year (as opposed to a 4.9 percent drop to 17.7 million units in the US). Not surprisingly, Lenovo is the big winner in all of this -- it's both the top PC maker in China and the fastest growing one, with a market share just shy of 32 percent.
Nokia still ahead of Apple in smartphone sales, according to Gartner
Whoa there, Apple, we know you're starting to feel pretty darn good about besting Nokia and Samsung for the title of world's largest smartphone manufacturer, but hold on for just one minute. Gartner has a different idea of how the numbers game really works, and its interpretation makes all the difference in determining who earns the title. Rather than measuring the number of units each manufacturer ships out to the distributors (as IDC, ABI Research and Strategy Analytics do), Gartner gauges its numbers by how many devices were actually sold to end users instead. Thus, Nokia still keeps its title -- for one more quarter, anyways. The firm is confident Espoo won't be the top smartphone contender for much longer, thanks to the company's grim Q3 outlook as it continues to await the transition to Windows Phone. But hey, there's always Q4, right? Right? Check out the full press release after the break.
Apple now the world's largest smartphone manufacturer, Samsung checks in at number two
We make our own truth. That's how IDC can come up with roughly the same numbers as fellow research firm Canalys and crown Apple the king, when its rival called Android top dog -- it's all about how you slice it. See, where as Canalys bundled all Android handset makers together, IDC has broken them up, which leads to a rather interesting twist -- the largest smartphone maker in the world is now Apple. Cupertino's growth of 141.7-percent in shipments year over year was enough to push it past Nokia (which slipped to number three) and Samsung (which climbed two spots to take the silver medal), while RIM and HTC rounded out the top five. That being said, no one is running away with the lead here, and Sammy's continued stratospheric rise should keep Apple on guard. Check out the full report after the break.
AMD's market share tiptoes higher, Intel still ruler of the roost
Intel may still be king of the microprocessing hill, but from the looks of IDC's latest market report, scrappy underdog AMD is starting to claim more of the $9.5 billion dollar pie. The semiconductor stalwarts faced off in four separate market categories with runner-up AMD seeing gains in all, save for servers where its paltry 5.5 percent share dropped 0.6 percent versus Intel's commanding 94.5 percent lead. The Q2 2011 report pegged Intel's overall worldwide share at 79.3 percent, a 1.5 percent decrease from the previous quarter, while AMD saw a 1.5 percent increase to 20.4 percent. For the mobile PC realm, Intel once again saw a decline as its 84.4 percent share took a 1.9 percent quarter to quarter tumble, with AMD again seeing a nearly 2 percent gain in its 15.2 percent stake. In the desktop PC segment, AMD grabbed an additional 1.5 percent, bringing its stake to 28.9 percent, with Intel's 70.9 percent share dropping 1.5 percent versus Q1 2011. Wondering where the second place chip maker got its second quarter stride? According to the research firm, its new Fusion platform, along with Intel's Sandy Bridge, now accounts for "more than 60% of total PC processor unit volume in 2Q11." You paying attention, Sandy? It's time to sleep with one eye open. [Image credit via Vault Networks]
IDC: Nokia, LG see significant Q2 shipping decline, Apple continues to grow
Well, the numbers are in and Q2's proved to be a mixed bag for the mobile market. According to IDC, cellphone makers shipped a total of 365.4 million units last quarter, a year-over-year increase of 11.3 percent. Nokia, while still the world's largest handset maker, suffered a significant blow, with shipments dropping from 111.1 million in Q2 2010 to 88.5 million; the company's market share was similarly down, hitting 24.2 percent, compared to last year's 33.8 percent. LG Electronics was the only other manufacturer to see a loss, with shipments dropping to 24.8 million from 30.6 million in 2010. Apple managed to maintain its recently acquired number four spot, with iPhone shipments hitting 20.3 million, up year-over-year from 8.4 million. RIM was conspicuously missing from the top five lineup, while ZTE landed the number five position. In news that shouldn't surprise anyone with a pulse, the feature phone market saw a decline this year, surprisingly its first since Q3 2009. If you're jonesing for more market share and shipping stats, hop on past the break for the full PR.
Apple jumps to no. 3 in US PC market, even without iPad
Gartner and the market intelligence firm IDC have made their quarterly proclamation about PC retail shipments, and things aren't too great for that market: Growth is much slower than expected, picking up only 2.3%, way off from the predictions of 6.7% or 12% growth made in the first quarter of this year. But even with the iPad and other tablets taking large bites out of the PC market, Apple's Mac sales are doing well, with shipments jumping up as high as 14.7%. Both of these numbers are shipments, not actual consumer sales, but still, the numbers have turned Apple into the third largest vendor of personal computers in the US, behind the lagging Dell and HP. In a press release, Gartner said that "the preliminary findings show Apple's performance far exceed the industry average, partly driven by an iMac refreshment that attracted both consumers and buyers in the education sector." Good news for Apple, then, all around. That's one of the wildest things about this company lately -- even as the folks in Cupertino prioritize mobile computing and emphasize the iPhone and the iPad, Macs continue to grow more popular than ever.
IDC and Gartner: US PC sales still sluggish, Apple, Toshiba see jumps in market share
IDC and Gartner have once again released dueling reports on the state of the PC market and, according to their numbers, the landscape's looking a little different. Gartner estimates that overall PC shipments during Q2 of this year increased by 2.3 percent from the same period last year, more or less concurring with the 2.6 percent global increase that IDC found. Things are looking a bit bleaker in the US, however, where quarterly year-to-year shipments are down (5.6 percent for Gartner, 4.2 percent for IDC), but have increased from Q1 of this year. On the corporate level, HP continues to dominate global shipments according to both reports, followed by Dell and Lenovo, which overtook Acer for third place. Stateside statistics, on the other hand, show a bit more severe shuffling among the top five, with Apple's US market share jumping to nearly 11 percent (good for third place) and Acer tumbling to fifth, thanks to a greater than 20 percent year-to-year decline in market share (see the table, above). In fact, among the top five, only Apple and fourth-place Toshiba increased their market share from Q2 of 2010 -- something that both research firms attributed, in part, to a weak consumer PC market and the rising popularity of tablets, led by the iPad. For a more thorough statistical breakdown, head past the break for a pair of comprehensive press releases.
HTC sales up nearly 88-percent from last year, analysts still skeptical on stock
Despite having moved into the number five slot on IDC's list of the top handset makers world wide -- beating out RIM and just behind Apple -- HTC has actually seen its share prices drop 19-percent since June 7th. The stock did rebound slightly following news that the company's sales for June were a staggering 87.8-percent higher than the same time last year. Surprisingly, that's actually a drop from May's figures which were 116-percent higher than the same month in 2010. Even though the company continues to break its own sales and profit records, some analysts don't think the company is out of the woods just yet -- a rather confusing outlook to us but, then again, we're not financial analysts.
Apple has become Australia's top mobile brand
There are a lot of iPhones in Australia, and IDC reports today that the number has grown enough to make the iPhone the top smartphone "down under." Apple is reported to have a 40% market share of Australia's smartphone market, a rise of about 10% quarter-to-quarter. Android has a 30% share, while Symbian is plunging to a third place 22%. The IDC analysts expect the Android OS phones to eventually be the top sellers, which is something we've seen here in the states. Meanwhile, Comscore is reporting that the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch account for 50% of Australia's mobile traffic, while Android devices consume 10.5%. Comscore is also reporting that the iPad is the dominant tablet in Australia, which is no surprise, as that aligns with numbers collected from other countries.
Research suggests Apple, Samsung to overtake Nokia this quarter
According to Boy Genius Report, a report from Nomura Research predicts that Nokia will lose its lead in smartphone unit sales for the first time this quarter, being surpassed by Apple and Samsung. Nokia has held the top spot in smartphone unit sales for the last 15 years. Dropping from first to third would be a blow indeed. It's not all bad news for Nokia, however, as the company will maintain its lead in overall cell phone sales. The Finnish communications corporation sells many low-end mobile phones in emerging markets, which boosts its numbers significantly. In February, Nokia announced it was dumping the Symbian operating system and embracing Microsoft's Windows Phone, in hopes that the union would improve its performance among smartphones.
IDC: smartphone market grows 80 percent year-on-year, Samsung shipments rise 350 percent
Smartphones are getting kind of popular nowadays, in case you hadn't noticed. The latest figures from IDC show a 79.7 percent expansion of the global smartphone market between this time last year and today, which has resulted in 99.6 million such devices being shipped in Q1 of 2011. That growth has mostly been driven by Samsung, which has more than quadrupled its output to 10.8 million shipments in the quarter, and HTC, whose growth has been almost as impressive. The other big gainer is Apple, with 10 million more iPhones shipped, but the truth is that all the top five vendors are showing double-digit growth. In spite of Nokia losing a big chunk of market share and RIM being demoted from second to third in the ranking, both of those old guard manufacturers improved on their quarterly totals. IDC puts this strength in demand down to the relatively unsaturated smartphone marketplace, and believes there's "ample room for several suppliers to comfortably co-exist," before ominously adding, "at least for the short term." And after the short term, our break-dancing robot overlords take over. Update: IDC has also released data for Western Europe that shows Nokia has lost the top spot both in terms of smartphones, to Apple, and in terms of overall mobile phone shipments, to Samsung.
IDC claims iPhone marketshare has grown 115%
The International Data Corporation reports that Apple has been taking over the smartphone market in the past few years, with its market share growing by almost 115% over the past year. Apple's still not on top of the list (as there are much more established manufacturers on there, and as we've heard, Apple has some competitors for market share as well), but the company's growth is phenomenal, and has earned it a number four spot on the top five list worldwide, with 5% of the global market. Even more phenomenal, of course, is the fact that Apple has basically done this with one phone, rather than competitors' multiple lines and flavors of smartphones and operating systems. When the company first started selling smartphones, it said that the goal was to get at least 1% of the global market, so not only has it beaten that goal five times over, but of course it's earned record revenues to match as well. [via MacRumors]
Survey: Developer interest in iOS highest and growing
Nielsen may be reporting that Android is growing in desire among consumers, but for developers, iOS is still the platform of choice. A survey by Appcelerator with help from IDC says that developers still favor iOS for making their mobile apps. A full 91 percent of devs surveyed said that they were "very interested" in making apps for iPhone, and 86 percent of those surveyed would like to make apps for iPad. In fact, the iPad has just recently risen up over the Android platform, which sits after a short fall at just 85 percent of developers saying they're "very interested" to code apps for it. Obviously, these numbers can't be used to proclaim that any one of these platforms are more or less healthy than the others -- mobile in general is big right now because it's such a growing market (and can be very lucrative for talented developers). But Android is still working out some kinks in terms of supporting development, while Apple has more of a tried-and-true solution. Developers in the survey said that Android fragmentation among devices as well as multiple app stores are keeping them away from projects on that platform. Microsoft and RIM, on the other hand, are still waiting on customer adoption -- the new BlackBerry PlayBook is at 20 percent interest among developers, and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform is only a little higher than that. At this point in time, Apple has everything developers want: a developer toolkit that's powerful and relatively easy to use, lots of customers ready to spend money on apps, and a big install base with a solid future. It's no wonder devs like iOS so much.
Apple takes a bite out of PC market
For the first time in six quarters, worldwide shipments of personal computers declined during the first three months of 2011, according to reports from Gartner Inc. and International Data Corp. (IDC) released this week. Despite faltering demand for PCs, Apple enjoyed increased sales and market share compared to the year-ago quarter. IDC's report indicated 80.6 million PCs shipped worldwide during the quarter -- a 3.2% decline from the same time last year. Gartner's figures showed sales dipped by 1.1% to 84.3 million units. In the United States, both firms agreed PC sales dropped from about 17 million units in the first quarter of 2010 to about 16.1 million PCs this year. Meanwhile, Apple watched its figures grow in the US, netting either 8.5% or 9.3% of the market -- a healthy jump from the 7% share the Cupertino-based company saw at the start of 2010. Apple's iPad may have also taken a significant bite out of PC sales. IDC said tablets like the iPad, which weren't included in either reporting firm's PC shipment calculations, contributed to shrinking demand for more powerful -- and more expensive -- notebooks and desktops.
IDC and Gartner's latest PC shipment stats show why Acer needed to make a strategic change
Gianfranco Lanci's departure from Acer last month came as a bit of a surprise, but looking at some fresh PC shipment data from the IDC, we can now understand why it had to happen. In Q1 of 2011, Acer suffered a precipitous 42.1 percent drop in PC shipments to the United States, falling from 2.3 million units in the first quarter of 2010 to 1.3 million in the first three months of this year. That's matched by a global downturn of 15.8 percent for the company's computer business, taking its market share from 12.9 percent down to 11.2. A percentage point and a half might not seem like much, but in the high stakes business of selling high volumes of devices with low profit margins, that can clearly make the difference between winning and losing, between living and dying (as a CEO). On a happier note, Lenovo surged upwards by 16.3 percent globally amid a market that shrunk a little overall. The IDC -- whose numbers are considered preliminary until companies confirm them in their quarterly financial reports -- identifies Acer's exposure to the shrinking interest in netbooks as the chief reason why it's now having to reorganize itself. That overhaul is already underway with a new logo and some attractively priced tablets, but it's likely to be a while before Acer gets back to challenging HP for world domination. Update: Gartner has dropped its figures for the first quarter as well, and while it doesn't see Acer losing out quite so badly in the US (minus 24.9 percent year-on-year), it agrees on its worldwide market struggles, placing its decrease in shipments at 12.2 percent.
Gartner: Android grabbing over 38 percent of smartphone market in 2011 on Symbian's demise
We like, ok, love poking fun at analysts' long term forecasts given the volatility of the smartphone market. Nobody, neither Gartner nor IDC, predicted the meteoric rise of Android and iOS, thus making their four-year projections (measured to a decimal point) laughable, to say the least. Shorten that timeline to the end of the year, however, and the accuracy of these forecasts tends to increase dramatically. Gartner just released its smartphone projections that align very closely with the numbers released by IDC a few weeks ago. Both research firms see Nokia hemorrhaging its smartphone dominance in 2011 after announcing plans to adopt the Windows Phone platform. Gartner sees Symbian pulling in a remarkably low 19.2 percent (down from 37.6 percent in 2010 or an impressive 46.9 percent share held back in 2009) regardless of Nokia's insistence that it still has some 150 million Symbian handsets to ship -- IDC, as you'll recall, was a bit more gracious with a 20.9 percent projection for Symbian in 2011. Like IDC, Gartner sees Microsoft making a dramatic comeback just as soon as Nokia can flood its global channels with mid-tier handsets by the end of 2012 with the Windows Phone operating system ultimately rising to the number two spot in global marketshare (Gartner says 19.5 percent to IDC's 20.9 percent) by, eh hem, 2015. Gartner expects the iOS smartphone slice to peak with a 19.4 percent share (to IDC's 15.7 percent) in 2011 before dipping a bit under the strain of an Android juggernaut and Apple's reluctance to sacrifice margins (and profits) for market share. Gartner expects Android to increase the 22.7 market share it enjoyed in 2010 to 38.5 percent in 2011 (compared to the IDC's slightly more aggressive 39.5 percent share) on the way to dominating the competition with a 49.2 percent share in 2012. Bringing up the rear then is RIM with an estimated chunk of just 13.4 percent in 2011 (compared to 16 percent in 2010) with further declines through 2015 even after the BlackBerry maker migrates to QNX in 2012. Ouch. As for WebOS: sorry HP, you're in the "other" category along with Bada.
IDC fails to learn from previous mistakes, issues 2015 smartphone predictions
The stat guardians at IDC are among the most reliable sources for keeping track of the latest developments in the smartphone market, but we've got to say their forecasts haven't always benefited from the same accuracy. It's with this disclaimer that we present you the world of 2015 as seen through the IDC prism. In just four years' time, says the data, Windows Phone 7 (or whatever version it reaches by then) will have ascended to occupy a fifth of the market and second spot overall behind Android, whose leading position is expected to stabilize somewhere around the 45 percent mark. Apple and RIM are projected to hold steady with shares close to where they are today. It has to be humbling for the IDC, which predicted Symbian would continue to dominate all the way into 2013, to now have to foretell of its almost complete extinction (a mere 0.2 percent) and total irrelevance in the smartphone market. Alas, while the new prediction sounds very reasonable today, four years of unknown unknowns is a mighty long time to try and forecast through, and we have a feeling we'll be looking back and chuckling at this within a few short months -- probably (hopefully!) in the midst of a massive webOS revival.
iPad killing the competition
With the iPad 2 hitting stores across the U.S. today and worldwide within a couple of weeks, Ars Technica published a report today showing that the iPad should remain the market leader for tablet devices through 2011. Citing data from market research firm IDC, Ars blogger Chris Foresman notes that Apple had about 83% of the tablet market for 2010, with most of the competition coming from Samsung's 7" Galaxy Tab. The Amazon Kindle, which is considered to be an eReader rather than a tablet, dominated its market with almost a 50% share in the fourth quarter of 2010. The Motorola Xoom was widely expected to take on the iPad, with better specs and the Android 3.0 OS. Unfortunately for this pretender to the throne, it was lacking some promised hardware and software features when it shipped, and is priced higher than most iPad 2 models. Forrester's Sarah Rotman Epps blogged that all of the upcoming competitors, such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, the HP Touchpad, and RIM's PlayBook, have serious problems with their product strategies. Many are priced higher than similar iPad models and/or come with carrier contracts to subsidize the high price. Most of Forrester's research points to consumer disinterest in having to sign a long-term contract for a tablet. Forrester expects 24.1 million tablets to sell in 2011 in the U.S., and close to 20 million of those will be iPads. Another market research firm, ChangeWave, is also predicting that 82% of people planning to buy a tablet in the next 90 days will buy an iPad. And with that news, it's time for me to go get in line for my iPad 2.
