IDC outs 2012 result, Samsung pulls further away

International Data Corporation’s 2012 results are in and although the ranking of the Top 5 Smartphone vendor remained almost unchanged, the numbers reveal a more detailed picture of how are things are shaping up in the standings.

To give you a better perspective on how the standing looks like, here’s a chart that shows the current ranking including each company’s total shipment, market share and year over year change.

What seemed like a neck-to-neck two-horse race between Apple and Samsung from the previous year (2011) has turned into a landslide victory for the latter with shipments up surging by more than two folds. Though the growth was not as substantial, Apple also put up a solid outing with shipments breaking the 100 million mark.

Nokia, who suffered the biggest loss in the bunch, claims the far third spot. Breathing down its neck are HTC and RIM who are on the close 4th and 5th spot. While these regular top-notchers struggle to stay afloat, other manufacturers outside of the Top 5 ranking had a good year. Their combined efforts amassed to 260.7 million of units shipped, almost 93% improvement from the previous year.

Now here’s a look at the top smartphone vendor for the last quarter of 2012.

ZTE continues to perform impressively for two quarters in a row, grabbing the fifth place in the standing with 48.4% growth over the previous year. Sony’s reaping the benefits of their recent shift in focus to improve their smartphone portfolio, capping the year off with 55.6% increase in shipment volume. The future is shaping quite nicely for the Japanese company, the only question now is if they can capitalize on their recently announced flagship handset.

But the biggest upset came from the Huawei, who took the third spot in Q4 2012 standing. It’s the first time that the Chinese manufacturer achieved this feat thanks to their affordable handsets and competitive flagship devices. Now it’s just a matter of maintaining this high-level performance. If they can do that, they should be well on their way on becoming one of the key players in the industry.

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