Global Mobile Phone Shipments hit 1 Billion

The global mobile market has reached another milestone with smartphone shipments hitting the 1 billion mark for the first time in 2013, a massive 38% increase from 2012. Smartphones now make up for around 55% of the 1.8 Billion mobile phone shipments made last year.

Samsung remains by far the largest smartphone company, with global shipments at 313.9 million. Samsung has seen its smartphone shipments go from strength to strength with a 42.9% increase in its global shipments during 2013. Although Apple remains, by far, the second largest smartphone company with 153.4 million iPhones shipped last year, its growth has been modest in comparison to Samsung’s at 12.9% in the same year.

Apple and Samsung’s dominance within the smartphone market, which is already at 47% between both companies, will continue to grow in the coming years as both companies continue with their large marketing campaigns and ever increasing product portfolios.

The massive increase in the levels of smartphone shipments, which has been continuing to grow over the last few years, is due to the ever growing demand for smartphones in Western Europe and North America but more so from the increasing demand from emerging markets, particularly in Asia and South America. China alone is now by far the largest smartphone market, accounting for around a third of all smartphone shipments globally.

After hitting the 1 billion mark in 2013, the smartphone market is expected to continue its spectacular rise with the level of global smartphone shipments expected to double by the beginning of 2015.

The mobile industry has already become the fastest growing industry in history, surpassing the dot com boom of the late 1990s. Here in the UK, and as we are now seeing globally, if you go into any mobile phone shop all you will see for sale are smartphones. However, in the UK, 95% of businesses do not have their mobile solutions in place to keep pace with their increasingly mobile customers; therefore the market really is wide open to get these businesses mobile.