Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo Among Top 5 Smart Phone Suppliers in 4Q 2012

Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo ranked among the top-five suppliers of smart phones in the fourth quarter of 2012. You might expect Samsung and Apple to top the list, and they do.

In the fourth quarter of 2012, Samsung provided 63 percent of smart phone shipments while Apple had 48 percent. Huawei shipped about 11.5 percent of all smart phones globally in the fourth quarter of 2012, while ZTE shipped 10 percent. Lenovo shipped about 9.5 percent of smart phones in the quarter.

For some of us, the surprise continues to be that BlackBerry and Nokia do not appear among the top five. We sometimes become myopic and assume that Nokia and BlackBerry are fighting Samsung and Apple. In one sense, that is true. Nokia and BlackBerry will have to fight for a spot among the “high end” providers in the market.

In a larger sense, it appears the situation is that Nokia and BlackBerry have to catch Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo, all of which seem to be gobbling up the low end that Nokia once dominated.