Smartphones shipments rose 29 per cent year on year to 1Q2008, said Gartner.
The sales figure was 32.2 million units – that’s 11 per cent of the global mobile device market. Among hardware vendors Nokia was the biggest winner with a 14 per cent share and its own sales up a quarter thanks to its popular Nseries range. RIM followed with a 13.4 per cent share driven by more consumer-friendly devices such as the Curve and the Pearl. Apple accelerated into third place with 5.3 per cent.The latter is an impressive achievement, with iPhone selling 1.72 million units in the first quarter of this year alone.
"Smartphone growth was driven by replacement markets such as Europe, and smartphone sales also benefited from continued growth in the US market, which increased its regional share to almost equal sales in Western Europe," said Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices at Gartner.
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