Smartphones in Taiwan will account for nearly 30 percent of the nation’s total mobile phone shipments this year as more low-priced models are expected to be launched, consulting firm International Data Corp (IDC) said on Friday.
Worldwide smartphone shipments are forecast to reach 428 million units this year compared to 270 million units last year, an increase of more than 50 percent, according to IDC.
Smartphone shipments in Taiwan, which accounted for between 21 percent and 22 percent of total mobile phone shipments last year, will increase to between 29 percent and 30 percent this year, higher than the global average of 26 percent, IDC senior analyst Joey Yen (嚴蘭欣) told reporters at a news conference.
“Chinese OEM [original equipment manufacturing] phone makers, such as ZTE Co [中興] and Huawei Technologies Co [華為], are ready to unveil more smartphones at a price of NT$7,000 to NT$8,000 [US$240 to US$274] in Taiwan this year, providing more product choices for local consumers and improving the popularity of smartphones,” she said.
The move will also change the current ranking of smartphone shipments, particularly the top five brands, as the number of phones that run Google Inc’s Android operating system is increasing, Yen said.
In the third quarter last year, Nokia Corp, which uses the Symbian operating system on its smartphones, still topped the worldwide smartphone market with a 32.7 percent market share, followed by 17.4 percent for Apple Inc, 15.3 percent for Research In Motion, 8.9 percent for Samsung Electronics Co and 7.2 percent for HTC Corp (宏達電), said IDC.
Global smartphone shipments by Samsung, which launched a slew of Android-based models last year, grew to 7.2 million units in the third quarter of last year compared to 1.3 million units a year earlier, an increase of 453.8 percent that surpassed the performance of all other smartphone makers.
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