Samsung’s Aggressive Push in Mobile Paying Off in IDC Poll

IDC Research has concluded that the smartphone market is growing nearly 20% in the first quarter of this year and that Nokia may be ceding market share as the world’s largest phone maker by volume is transitioning its smartphone line to Windows Phone 7, leading to a shakeup among the top phone and smartphone makers.

Apple, Samsung, and HTC are doing well in the smartphone category, challenging Nokia. In Western Europe, in particular, though Nokia’s brand name remains strong, Samsung’s agility in creating touchscreen phones and its partnership with Google–along with feature phones and those smartphones running the company’s own internal Bada OS–are paying off. The company has now taken the lead beating out Nokia as the overall phone maker in terms of volume and market share in the first quarter. Apple, likewise, has taken top spot as the number one smartphone-maker in Western Europe as well, taking the crown from Nokia.

Though in terms of worldwide market share in the first quarter, Nokia is still hanging on as the world’s largest smartphone and phone maker. However, there is still a lot of volatility in the phone business.

What’s interesting, however, is that while Apple is the number two smartphone maker in the world in the first quarter, after having captured 15.7% of the smartphone market compared to Nokia which has the leading 38.8%, it is the number four phone-maker in the world based on Q1 market share. In terms of overall phone market share, and not just smartphone, Nokia has almost 35% of the market, followed by Samsung with over 20% and LG with over 8%. Apple’s iPhone’s paltry 2.8% was enough to give the Cupertino, California company the number four seat in terms of Q1 overall phone market share.

When it comes to smartphone, RIM is still a powerful player. Having grown about 31% in the first quarter year over year, RIM  is seated in third place behind Apple and Nokia in the smartphone market share data.

Via: Reuters and Apple Insider