Galaxy and iPhone to top smartphone Christmas sales

APPLE’S long-awaited iPhone 4S and Samsung Electronics’ fresh, broad offering are likely to stand out in this festive season’s smartphone sales which will otherwise be clouded by global economic doubt.

Apple, which lost its position as the world’s largest smartphone maker to Samsung in the last quarter, could regain the top spot as consumers rush to buy the latest iPhone after waiting 16 months since the previous model went on sale.

In Britain, which is often seen as the indicator for the rest of the European market, the iPhone took a 43% market share in October, overtaking phones using Google’s Android platform, according to the research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

“It’s really only the iPhone family and the [Samsung] Galaxy family flying off the shelves. Everyone else is just picking up the leftovers,” said Neil Mawston, analyst at research firm Strategy Analytics in Britain.

HTC and Research In Motion (RIM) — No 4 and No 5 smartphone vendors — have already warned of weak Christmas sales. The year end is a key sales season for smartphone vendors as consumers often replace their models for Christmas.

Vendors are expected to sell 142 million smartphones in October-December, up 42% from a year ago, according to a Reuters poll of analysts.

Overall phone sales have been shrinking in Western Europe this year as consumers delay purchases in a tighter economy. Analysts expect sales of non-smartphones to stay on a par with year-ago numbers.

Smartphone sales growth, which is driven by swapping for more advanced models, has slowed over the year.

“For Europe, Q4 will not be the usual bonanza. The economy is pushing consumers to be pickier,” said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi, adding that this played to the advantage of Samsung and Apple.

Sales of Apple’s iPhone have surged since October when the iPhone 4S became available, and the company is expected to sell about 28m iPhones in the quarter, a 70% surge from a year ago.

Samsung’s handset sales this year set a record by November, boosted by good demand for its flagship Galaxy S II model, whose sales reached 10m units, the company said a week ago.

The Reuters poll does not break out Samsung smartphone sales as the firm does not report the number, but five analysts forecast those sales should be similar to that of Apple.

Sales of Nokia products will also be closely watched in the quarter for first reactions to its Windows Phone models, although most Nokia smartphones are still powered by its own ageing Symbian software.

Analysts expect Nokia’s smartphones sales in the fourth quarter to fall 31% from a year ago to 19m phones as the new Windows Phones will not yet compensate for diving Symbian sales. Still, that would be well ahead of HTC’s 11m and RIM’s 14m.

With the proliferation of touchscreens and half of all smartphones sold using the Android operating system, consumers are struggling to see the difference among the models.

— Reuters