Apple Continues to Fall

If you needed an indicator of just how much the mobile market today is a smartphone market, look no further than the figures put out early today by Strategy Analytics. The researchers estimate that overall mobile phone shipments just under 1.7 billion, with smartphones accounting for nearly 1 billion — or 990 million, to be exact. While the wider mobile market grew only 5% in that time, smartphone units increased by 41% over 2012′s 700 million smartphone shipments.

But it’s not all a rosy picture for smartphones. While 41% growth sounds good, Ken Hyers, an analyst at Strategy Analytics, notes that it is actually down slightly on the 43% growth of a year ago. He says this is because of “high penetration in some major markets like the United States.”

The figures coincided with Apple releasing its Q1 earnings, and the issue of slowing sales in mature markets was something that had a direct effect on Apple. Traditionally a strong player in the U.S., CEO Tim Cook noted today that Apple’s sales in North America declined. And its second-biggest market, Europe (“mature” as well Old World), was up by only 5%.

Apple continues to fall (pardon the pun) and is now at 15.5% for the full year (compared to 19% a year ago) on 153 million units. And although Huawei, LG and Lenovo are all behind Apple, together they are nearly overtaking the iPhone maker in units, with a combined share of 14.6%.