According to IDC, 1.82 billion mobile phones were shipped last year. In order to help you wrap your mind around this figure, we present the graphic below:
1.82 billion is a new record, and that’s not the only one that was set. It was also the first year there were more smartphones shipped than feature phones:
Strategy Analytics notes that the growth in the smartphone market is being spurred by the purchase of inexpensive low-end Android devices aimed at markets in China, MINT, and “Next Eleven” countries.
According to Canalys, of the one billion smartphones that shipped last year, Android made up for 79% (785 million), Apple made up for 15% (154 million), and the largest year-over-year growth was shown by Windows Phone, who grew their share 69% from Q4 2012 to Q4 2013, and accounted for 3% (32 million).
Here’s their chart showing smartphone units shipped by platform for 2012 and 2013:
Click the graph to see it at full size.
Click the graph to see the source.
…namely, that BlackBerry devices accounted for 0% of U.S. smartphone activations in 4Q 2013. It’s unlikely that there were absolutely no BlackBerry activations in the U.S. from October through December 2013, but the number was low enough to be, as Dean Wormer read John “Bluto” Blutarsky’s grade point average in Animal House, “zero…point…zero”.
It’s not the kind of news BlackBerry or its investors want to hear, especially before tomorrow, the first anniversary of the BlackBerry Z10 launch (it was launched on January 31, 2013 in the UK, followed by Canada, India, and UAE in February, and the U.S. in March).
