Samsung smartphones outsell feature phones for first time

Johannesburg: Samsung smartphones have reportedly outsold feature phones for the first time, a new study has revealed.

As people are increasingly making a shift to smarter mobile devices , research firm Gartner found that smartphone sales totalled 968 million units in 2013, representing growth of 42.3 percent over the previous year.

According to a website, it was revealed that smartphones accounted for 53.6 percent of all mobile phones sold, putting the existence of feature phones in jeopardy for the first time.The growth though, was led by sales in developing markets, where people have been turning to smartphones to connect to the internet, sometimes even skipping PCs.

Gartner said that the increasing contribution of smartphones was led by growth in Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, Asia/Pacific and Eastern Europe, where smartphone sales grew by more than 50 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013.

However, an analyst with the firm, Anshul Gupta, said that lack of compelling hardware innovation has exacerbated replacement cycles for high-end smartphones in 2013 because consumers don't find enough reasons to upgrade.

The research found Samsung as the big winner from the sales of smartphones, consolidating market share at 31 percent, selling nearly 300 million units in 2013, followed close second by Apple, whose market share is seen as continually eroding from 19.1 percent to 15.6 percent in 2013.

Gupta advised Samsung to focus on midrange smartphone pricing while continuing to build on its leadership at the premium end of the market, the report added.