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iPhone 5 Stalls Mobile Market Growth

This article is more than 10 years old.

Worldwide sales of cellphone have fallen for the first time since 2009, as consumers choose to wait for Apple's next iPhone before upgrading, according to analyst firm Gartner.

The fall in sales is partly due to a downturn in the Asian markets.The fall in sales were revealed by Gartner on Wednesday in its latest quarterly report. The research firm claims that 419.1 million cellphone units were sold during the first quarter of 2012, representing a 2 percent fall, or some 20 million units, compared to the same period last year.

"We were not expecting a slowdown in Asia. China is usually a particularly big market in the first quarter, with the Chinese New Year normally leading to a sales boom," said Gartner analyst Anshul Gupta in a statement.

"But this year consumers have held off upgrading, waiting for other high end devices, like the new Apple iPhone."

Gupta warned that a new iPhone on the horizon will continue to have a negative impact cellphone sales, hitting the likes of Samsung and Apple who both enjoyed solid quarters despite the overall downturn.

Gartner also confirmed that Samsung is both the top handset and smartphone vendor in the world, overtaking Nokia and Apple respectively.

"Samsung took back the world's number one smartphone position from Apple, selling 38 million smartphones worldwide," Gartner said. "In addition, Samsung's Android-based smartphone sales in the first quarter of 2012 represented more than 40 percent of Android-based smartphone sales worldwide; no other vendors achieved more than a 10-percent share of the market."

Samsung's Android-powered smartphones now account for more than 40 percent of all Android smartphone sales worldwide during the first quarter.

Apple also had an excellent quarter despite losing out to Samsung, seeing a 96.2 percent growth in smartphone sales.

Gartner claims that the growth of smartphone sales by Apple and Samsung means that the two companies now account for 49.3 percent of the entire market. During the same quarter in 2011 the two companies held a 29.3 percent share.