Communications and Technology Industry Research

Bucking downward trends in the U.S. economy, mobile phone shipments in the nation grew 6 percent year-over-year and reached 47 million units in the quarter just ended, according to a Boston-based IT market research firm.

 

Officials at Strategy Analytics say that Samsung (News - Alert) become the U.S. market leader for the first time by outperforming its competitors.

 

According to Neil Mawston, the firm’s director, “Attractive bundling schemes from operators, healthy subsidies and aggressive pre-stocking by distributors ahead of the holiday season helped to lift volumes.”

 

Bonny Joy, the Strategy Analytics senior analyst who authored the firm’s new 8-page report – titled “Vendor Share: Samsung Goes Top in North America in Q3 2008,” said that Samsung registered 22.4 percent of market share in the United States during the third quarter.

 

“Samsung’s growing retail presence and an attractive handset portfolio for each of the big four operators proved crucial in grabbing the prestigious title of the number one vendor in the world’s single largest handset market,” Joy said.

 

The firm’s statistics match up fairly well with those from another IT research company – ABI Research (News - Alert) – which, as TMCnet reported, announced an overall 8.2 percent third quarter increase for mobile handsets.

 

Though some mobile device makers fared better than others, officials at ABI Research say, the handsets’ value as more than fashion accessories has fueled market growth.

 

According to the firm’s research director, Kevin Burden, Nokia stumbled somewhat and saw its market share shrink to about 38 percent, while Motorola (News - Alert) and LG also were net losers, with market shares of about 8 and 7 percent, respectively.

“Winners include Samsung (16.6 percent), Apple (News - Alert) (2.2 percent), and RIM (2.0 percent),” Burden said. “Smartphones are truly capturing the imagination of the buying public which is benefitting vendors with highly desirable smartphones.”

 

Here’s how ABI breaks down vendor market share for the quarter in its report, titled “Mobile Devices Market Sizing and Share”:

 

 

According to Strategy Analytics’ report, RIM maintained a double-digit market share for the second straight quarter.

 

“Its balanced portfolio of enterprise and consumer devices is seeing solid demand,” the firm said. “Apple reached sixth position in the United States during Q3. AT&T (News - Alert) subsidized the iPhone heavily down to lower retail price-points, driving a spike in demand.”