Industry's slowest growth rate for nearly three years.
Research from Strategy Analytics says that worldwide shipments of smartphones grew 32 per cent in Q2 2012, reaching 146 million units.
However, despite the increase, this was the smartphone industry's slowest growth rate since Q3 2009.
Alex Spektor, associate director at Strategy Analytics, said: "A volatile global economy, maturing penetration of smartphones among contract mobile subscribers, and some Apple fans holding off purchases in anticipation of a new iPhone 5 model later this year were among the main causes of the slowdown.”
Samsung and Apple combined now account for more than half of all smartphones shipped globally, up from about one third last year.
Neil Shah, senior analyst at Strategy Analytics, said: "The growth of Samsung and Apple has come partly at the expense of Nokia, whose global smartphone marketshare has halved from 15 per cent to seven per cent over the past year.
"Nokia is seeing reasonable growth in its new Microsoft Lumia portfolio, but it is not yet offsetting the sharp decline in its aging Symbian platform.”
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