IDC have just published their worldwide mobile phone market shipments report for quarter 4 of 2011.
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Apple has now moved up to its highest ever position at #3 both in the quarter and for the year with only Nokia and Samsung ahead of it. As recently mentioned we reckon, on the smartphone front, Apple are joint #1 with Samsung. The overall market is stated to have grown by 11.1% in the year but has slowed to 6.1% in the quarter (it was IDC say 9.3% in quarter 3).
Using the already quoted Strategy Analytics smartphone analysis, as one would expect the feature phone units shipped have decreased in the year by about 3% and in quarter 4 by almost 10%. The smartphone market as a percentage of the mobile market for the year has grown from 22% to 32% and in quarter 4 from 25% to 36%. Gartner back in October were forecasting the smartphone market to reach over 630 million units this year which we think may be an underestimate in which case its possible that smartphones will overtake feature phones during the year.
The featured phone is a ZTE product (they are a major player both within and outside China).
