RIM, Apple triumph over Nokia

Despite the hope that smartphones will drive mobile handset manufacturers’ recovery from the worst quarter-on-quarter growth ever recorded in the fourth quarter, it’s still a long road ahead. Research firm Gartner said that smartphones accounted for only 12% of all mobile device sales for the quarter, compared to the NPD Group’s more optimistic 23% estimation. Research In Motion and Apple made the biggest advances in the fourth quarter, while traditional market leader Nokia took a hard hit to its dominant market position.

Coming off a weak fourth quarter in which it too pegged hopes of recovery on smartphones, Nokia saw its marketshare slide from 50.9% to 40.8%, while overall smartphone sales increased 3.7%. With 15.6 million units shipped, the manufacturer maintained its number-one position but saw a total smartphone decline of 16.8% year-over-year. Nokia’s Nseries, never popular in the United States, will continue to face competitive pressure in the high-end consumer smartphone market, while its entry level smartphones should whether the downturn, according to Gartner research director Robert Cozza. The manufacturer also today introduced three new music-oriented phones to expand its consumer services push with a focus on its unlimited music downloading service, Comes With Music.

Nokia did end the year capturing 40.8% of the market, suggesting its fourth-quarter troubles were also attributable to weakness across the board. According to Cozza, Nokia and the other handset OEMs failed to continue the third quarter’s new product momentum as the economic climate worsened, leaving smartphone data plans undesirable for most consumers.

The burden wasn’t shared equally, however. Handset OEM Samsung took its place in the top-five vendor ranking for the first time, replacing Sharp. The manufacturer sold a record high of 200 million handsets in 2008, an increase of 22% from 2007, despite a market-wide 5% contraction in global handset sales. On its fourth-quarter earnings call, Samsung senior vice president of strategic planning Chi Young-Cho told investors that the manufacturer will continue to expand its lineup of touch-screen smartphones and provide various operating systems to satisfying its customer diverse needs in 2009.