IDC: Worldwide mobile phone market increased 17.9% in Q4 and up 18.5% in 2010

Ian Hardy

January 28, 2011 7:50am


International Data Corporation (IDC) released their Q4 Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker report and the data shows that Nokia still is king with 30.8% market share – but slowly slipping. Following was Samsung with 20.1% then LG with 7.6% market share. Out of nowhere was ZTE (lots of Public Mobile phones were sold) who claimed 4th place and has captured 4.2% market share. Apple slipped from 4th place to 5th place and has 4.0% of the market but compared to last year they recorded the largest increased with 86.2%. Missing from the top 5 are Research in Motion, Sony Ericsson and Motorola.

IDC stated the mobile phone market grew 17.9% in the Q4, mainly due to the adoption of Smartphones. In total 401.4 million devices were shipped (up from 340.5 million in 2009). Compiling the 2010 numbers reveals a total of 1.39 billion devices were shipped globally in 2010 (up 18.5% from 2009) and that the same order applies for the Q4 results with Nokia, Samsung, LG, ZTE and Apple taking the top spots.

Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC said “The mobile phone market has the wind behind its sails. Mobile phone users are eager to swap out older devices for ones that handle data as well as voice, which is driving growth and replacement cycles.”

Source: IDC
Via: Apple Insider



  • Zeake

    Wow, Nokia is BEAST! Too bad 99% of their phones are butt ugly and their OS sucks!

  • Colin

    Wow, that’s a Fan Boy statement if I ever heard one. 😛

  • Zeake

    How is that fan-boy?

    • Colin

      The “99% of their phones are butt ugly and their OS sucks!” part. Not a Nokia fan boy, but a type of statement of a fan boy of another Manufacture/OS.

  • Quantum

    Respect to Apple. They are holding that place with just iPhone, whereas other manufacturers are producing 100s of models to hold that share.

  • public

    ohh Wow Public Mobile Sold so many phones thats so Awesome. Glad to see the small companies doing pretty good.

  • jeff

    Can anyone please explain to me what the heck is ZTE doing in this top list ? Excuse my ignorance, but as far as I know, every single one of their few phones suck really bad.. do they have a few really good smartphones that I have yet to see ?

  • public

    @ Jeff……its not ur problem to solve it . if poeple buying it then wats ur prob… we should better appreciate the result.

  • jeff

    Lol.. you are a funny something you..
    Let me be polite here :

    1: what are you talking about. Im not trying to solve any problem. And buddy, i dont have a problem. I am asking a question. If you cant answer, dont come up with a comment that says absolutely nothing.. dont waste your time, just go to bed.

    2: if there was actually something to appreciate here.. i would, but i am not finding much appreciation in numbers. I MIGHT appreciate products. Once again, going back to my original question, did ZTE do anything good ? Im asking, which is not being sarcastic btw.

    3: but you know… coming from someone who promotes public mobile.. lol, it’s alright.. i understand. You must be full of frustration just for realizing whats in your hands in the first place, and heck, they DO have zte phones ! Can you invest your time in a good way and explain to me the crazy goodness that public mobile got from ZTE please ?

    Im not sure why, but i cant wait for his reply to this..

  • windy winker

    I have to agree here the only thing I remember from zte is their multitap phones that had the full qwerty keyboard into such a small flip phone what a piece of junk