1st Time Smartphones Outsold Feature Phones

The article below documents the fast pace of smartphones' growth and shows that for the first quarter of 2013, the sales of smartphones surpassed feature phones. Smartphone growth is driven by access to fingertip computing anywhere, anytime (see 2010 article Four Billion Cell Users : Computing Power Anytime, Anyplace).

between the five top vendors, Apple loss market share and had the smallest increase of growth between 2012 and 2013. This is due to the growth in emerging countries where the iPhone is too expensive relative to other smartphones. It is not likely that Apple will introduce an inexpensive iPhone in China considering the tough price competition it would face from the much cheaper Android phones. People in emerging countries are more price conscious. Apple will want to maintain its high quality brand and its higher pricing and is likely to repeat its Mac vs PC history see the 2008 story -Are iPhone and Android Smart Phones Repeating the History of Mac vs. PC in the 80s

The fast growth of smartphones in 2012 and 2013 by Huawei, ZTE, CoolPad, and other companies in emerging countries was made possible by the chips manufactured by MediaTek (see January story about MediaTek Apples' Cook in China (MediaTek Impact)).

Ron

Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.Semiconductor information and news at - www.maltiel-consulting.com

 

Smartphones outpace feature phones for first time ever

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57581566-94/smartphones-outpace-feature-phones-for-first-time-ever/

by Jonathan Skillings , April 26, 2013 5:29 AM PDT

 

In the first quarter of 2013, smartphones accounted for more than half of phone makers' shipments worldwide. Samsung remained the top dog, but LG, Huawei, and ZTE all saw big gains.

LG returned to IDC's smartphone Top 5 in the first quarter of 2013 with record-high shipments, riding a strong interest in its LTE-enabled devices, including the Optimus G.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

It seemed inevitable, and now it has happened: for the first time ever, feature phones have taken a backseat to smartphones in terms of quantities shipped.

In the first quarter of 2013, device makers shipped 216.2 million smartphones worldwide, a volume that accounted for 51.6 percent of total global shipments and that marked the first time smartphones have claimed more than half of all quarterly shipments, according to market researcher IDC.

The smartphone market grew 41.6 percent compared with the first quarter of 2012, but declined 5.1 percent from the shipment tally for the fourth quarter of 2012. The first quarter of the year typically sees a slowdown, especially in comparison with the holiday-shopping-filled fourth quarter.

The first quarter saw a total of 418.6 million mobile phones -- both smartphones and the less-powerful feature phones -- shipped worldwide, IDC said Thursday.

"Phone users want computers in their pockets," IDC analyst Kevin Restivo said in a statement. "The days where phones are used primarily to make phone calls and send text messages are quickly fading away."

(Credit: IDC/Screenshot by CNET)

See more additional table and statistic about the whole mobile vendors

Tablets,Smartphones, and SSDs Market Share of NAND in 2013

The Smartphones, Tablet PCs, SSDs Propelling NAND Flash Sales in 2013 report  discusses the percentages of NAND sales to the various end markets.  NAND demand is being impacted quite a bit by the growth of tablets that are replacing laptops.   iPad market grew fast and the pc makers have been marketing and testing out various tablet forms that are gaining acceptance.  Tablets are expected to reach 12% of the $30.0 Billion NAND flash market in 2013.  In addition, every Tablet has an SSD storage, so the growth of Tablets will lead to increased demand of SSDs.

More about Tablets are the new mobile (Tablets are the new mobile, the slide deck in the article shows the growth of mobile and Tablets in the Apple and Android eco-sphere. There are many other slides at the link below. The future of mobile was discussed in the April 15, 2009 Mobile Computing the Next Big Market article)

Ron

Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.Semiconductor information and news at - www.maltiel-consulting.com

Top Semiconductor Ranking 2012 (Sales, Growth)

http://www.semiconportal.com/en/archive/news/news-flash/120330-isuppli-semiconductor-ranking.html

While it is useful to include foundries in sales ranking, still Sandisk is not listed in the ranking.

See more about it at 2012 Q1 Ranking: Toshiba Outperforms NAND Market and overall foundries and Japanese fab status Semiconductor Ranking: Foundries Soar, Japanese Crash

Ron

Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.Semiconductor information and news at - www.maltiel-consulting.com

Qualcomm, GloFo star in chip supplier ranking

Peter ,  3/28/2013 6:18 AM EDT

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/441084/Qualcomm-GloFo-are-stars-of-2012-chip-supplier-ranking

 

IDMs and fab-lite companies suffer as pure-play fabless and foundry companies are the star performers in a 2012 ranking of chip suppliers from IC Insights. 
LONDON – A ranking of the top 25 worldwide semiconductor companies by sales, covering ICs optoelectronics, sensors and discrete devices, from market research firm IC Insights shows that Globalfoundries increased sales by 31 percent and Qualcomm by 30 percent. Qualcomm broke into the top five (see figure 1 below).

Foundry TSMC remained in third place but increased sales by 18 percent getting closer to Samsung and Intel, which both saw sales decline. Although both Samsung and Intel are making first steps to enter the foundry business the former was weighed down with memory sales and the latter with a focus on processors for the lackluster PC market.

In total, the top 25 semiconductor companies’ sales declined by 1 percent in 2012, two points less than the total worldwide semiconductor market decline of 3 percent.

By geography the top 25 includes 10 suppliers headquartered in the U.S., seven in Japan, three in Taiwan, three in Europe, and two in South Korea.



Click on image to enlarge.
2012 top 25 semiconductor suppliers ranked by sales ($millions, including foundries).

Same companies, different order, ranked by annual growth

IC Insights has also supplied a ranking of the same 25 companies ranked by annual growth (see figure 2 below). It is notable that lower order of that ranking filled with companies that experienced a double-digit percentage fall in sales includes a number of European and Japanese companies. 

It is notable that GlobalFoundries with a 31 percent increase in sales and AMD with a 17 percent decline are at opposite ends of that ranking in 2012. AMD was the original parent of Globalfoundries and has been its primary customer. IC Insights interprets the success as an indication that Globalfoundries has achieved success in attracting additional IC foundry customers such as STMicroelectronics, Freescale, Qualcomm and others.

The inclusion of foundries in such rankings is contentious because it means that some sales are double counted – from foundry to fabless chip company and then from fabless chip company to customer. However, IC Insights said that in a forthcoming update to The McClean Report, marketshare rankings of IC suppliers by product type will also be presented and foundries are excluded from these rankings.



Click on image to enlarge.
2012 top 25 semiconductor companies by sales ranked by annual growth ($millions, including foundries).