A new study from ABI Research says that sales of the Apple iPhone increased considerably in the fourth quarter of 2011. Although Android ruled the roost throughout the year as far as smartphone sales were concerned, it apparently suffered a setback in Q411.
The report runs along similar lines as the recent Nielsen survey, which also made such claims centered on the face off between Apple and Android smartphones. According to ABI, this is the first time since Android’s introduction that its devices have seen a downslide in market demand. Sales of smartphones running on Google’s mobile OS went down to 47 percent in the fourth quarter as compared to 52.5 percent in the third one.
While elaborating on the subject, Senior Analyst, Michael Morgan, remarked, “It is important to note that if smartphones are taken out of the equation, the remainder of the handset market showed a YoY shipment decline of 1.6%, signifying that market growth is entirely dependent on smartphones.”
According to the latest count, 150 million smartphone units were shipped during the fourth quarter of last year, out of which 37 million were iPhone handsets. Apple recorded a sequential growth rate of 117 percent and this figure made it the topmost smartphone OEM in the fourth quarter as well as the whole year. The research states that Samsung headed the OEM sector for Android smartphones and registered a number amounting to 33 million shipments.
Other findings of the ABI Research study include information about the overall handset market which increased 5.4 percent sequentially and 11.4 percent for the year, managing to touch 1.54 billion shipments.