In 2012, a total of 1.75 billion mobile phones were sold, a decline of 1.7% from 2011, according to the research firm Gartner. It is the first fall in sales since 2009.
As expected, Samsung and Apple continued to dominate the market in 2012. The Korean giant sold 385 million phones, of which 53.5% were smartphones, and Apple sold 130 million smartphones.
In the fourth quarter of 2012, Chinese company Huawei moved up to third place in worldwide smartphone sales, selling 27.2 million smartphones in 2012, an increase of 74%.
Gartner expects sales of traditional mobile phones, non-smartphones, to continue falling and that in 2013 smartphones sales will outstrip sales of traditional phones for the first time.