Apple smartphone shipments grow 132%, Motorola rebounds

Worldwide in first quarter, smartphone manufacturers shipped 54.7 million units, growing 56.7 percent year over year, according to IDC. Apple surged strongest -- 131.6 percent. While seemingly good, Apple needs to look back at approaching HTC and Motorola. Motorola is making a big comeback, and by way of smartphones; shipments grew 91.7 percent year over year. Motorola is betting big on iPhone OS rival Android. IDC noted that Motorola is expected to launch 20 new handset models during 2010, shipping an estimated 12-14 million Android smartphones.

About 27 percent of Motorola's total handset shipments were smartphones, which was higher than the market average of 18.8 percent, up from 14.4 percent a year earlier. Apple ships 100 percent smartphones.

After several quarters declines, Nokia pushed back. Market share was 39.3 percent, same as first quarter 2009. However, Nokia unit shipments surged from 13.7 million to 21.5 million. Apple and Nokia are both expected to launch new flagship smartphones within months. Nokia already has confirmed the N8 for third quarter release. Apple will hold its annual developer conference in about a month. Analysts are speculating that Apple will either announce or make available the next iPhone during the event.

In a statement Ramon Llamas, IDC senior research analyst, asserted:

2010 looks to be another year of large-scale consumer adoption of converged mobile devices. Consumers will gravitate to smartphones not just because the devices themselves look 'cool' and 'slick', but because the overall experience aligns with their individual tastes and demands. Users are seeking -- and finding -- experiences that are intuitive, seamless, and fun. Already, we've seen what Palm's webOS and Google's Android can do. This year, we expect updates for BlackBerry, Symbian, and Windows Mobile to spark greater smartphone demand with their offerings.

What Llamas didn't explain, but I will, is the importance of lifestyle. The personal nature of smartphones -- viewed either by form or use -- make them ideally suited to lifestyle marketing. Most successful brands, regardless of industry, sell some type of lifestyle. Apple already has established a mobile, connected, app-centric lifestyle around iPhone. Motorola is moving in the right direction with the MotoBlur skin, as one lifestyle anchor. However, Motorola's overall marketing is weak compared to rivals, and that's without a broader lifestyle approach. Motorola's biggest marketing boost comes from Verizon, which spent $100 million marketing the Droid.

However, HTC and Motorola, which are both betting big on Android, have a tougher lifestyle sell because they don't own the entire hardware-software-services stack like Apple, Nokia or Research in Motion. That said, BlackBerry is looking outdated compared to the competition. RIM has to hustle getting OS 6.0 to market. Meanwhile, Nokia already is pushing a new socially connected lifestyle around the N8 ahead of its release. Smartphone lifestyle marketing could be fierce during third and fourth quarters.

For second-quarter shipments, Microsoft will make its first smartphone device showing with KIN, which went on sale yesterday. Verizon is the exclusive US distributor. Then there is HP's acquisition of Palm, which could bring WebOS to more smartphones this year.

The broader handset market showed slower, but still impressive growth, compared to smartphones: 21.7 percent year over year. Manufacturers shipped 294.9 million units, compared to 242.4 million a year earlier. However, these seemingly strong shipments are deceptive. During fourth quarter 2008 and first quarter 2009, handset manufacturers shipped fewer phones. Following the September 2009 stock market crash, cell phone sales slowed, and most manufacturers reduced shipments to avoid overstocking the stores. Shipments rebounded in both Q2 and Q3 2009, making coming comparisons to those quarters more revealing about the health of handset shipments.

IDC reports sales into the channel, while rival Gartner reports sales to end users. Combined, the data can give a better view of shipments to carriers, standing inventory and end-user sales. Gartner has not yet released Q1 2001 smartphone sales figures.