Who sold smartphones in 2012?

Samsung had a great year. For the first time in the company's history, the South Korean giant has received the title of largest global producer of smartphones. Given that we are talking about a company that deals exclusively for smartphones, the achievement is even more spectacular. This performance is measured in 215 million smartphones sold and a market share of 30.9 percent, up from 18.7 percent the previous year. Compared to 2011, Samsung has brought in the hands of users 136% more smartphones in 2012.

In theory, Apple had a very good year. I say in theory because although last year Apple sold 135.8 million iPhones compared to 93.1 million in 2011, this amount was reflected in an increase of only 0.4 percent of the market share. Therefore, if in 2011, Apple was the first producer of smartphones in the world, with 19.1 percent, and in 2012, came second with 19.5 percent. Together, Samsung and Apple currently owns over half of the smartphone market. By the rest of the producers, the difference from heaven to earth.

Huawei is in third place with 7.9% and must work incredibly hard to keep this place in the rankings because other companies like Nokia, BlackBerry, HTC and Sony are also competing to enter the top three in 2013. The problem is that only third place will be available.

Nokia had last year 5% of the market, given that in 2011 had 15.9%. RIM's market share was 4.8%, down from the 10.8% the previous year. HTC took 4.5% of the market compared to the 9.2 in 2011. All went down, with very few exceptions. You may be tempted to boast Huawei or ZTE results. In reality, these increases were due exclusively to the Chinese market, so small that there is little chance that the next phone you buy will be a ZTE, especially if you look at a high-end terminal or if you previously had a Samsung Galaxy S or Apple iPhone.

In the same category as ZTE and Huawei might go Lenovo. However, the performance of the company, which has since has grown to have its headquarters in North Carolina, is completely different. Lenovo didn’t made phones three years ago. The fact that in 2012 managed to sell 24.9 million devices, proves that Lenovo found a recipe that many have had it in the past and lost it.