This undated file photo shows feature phones displayed at a store in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, March 10 (Korea Bizwire) — Samsung Electronics Co. was the world’s fourth-largest feature phone seller in the fourth quarter of 2020, a report showed Wednesday.
The South Korean giant had an 8 percent share in the global feature phone market in the October-December period, down from 10 percent a quarter ago, according to market researcher Counterpoint Research.
iTel, a phone brand under China’s Transsion Holdings Co., was the largest feature phone maker in the fourth quarter of 2020 with a market share of 22 percent, followed by Finnish phone maker HMD Global with 17 percent.
Another Transsion brand, Tecno Mobile, came in third with a 10 percent share.
Global feature phone shipments grew 9 percent quarter-on-quarter to over 80 million units in the fourth quarter, but they declined 24 percent compared to a year earlier.
By region, Samsung was the second-largest feature phone vendor in India with an 18 percent share, only behind iTel, which had a 20 percent share.
India was the largest feature phone market, representing 38 percent of the global feature phone shipments in the fourth quarter of 2020.
In the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region, the second-largest market for feature phones, Samsung only had a 1 percent share.
When it comes to the smartphone sector, Samsung was the world’s second-largest vendor with a market share of 16 percent in the fourth quarter, trailing behind U.S. tech titan Apple Inc., which logged a 21 percent market share.
Global smartphone shipments in the fourth quarter fell 1.6 percent on-year but posted 8 percent growth from a quarter earlier to 394.6 million units, Counterpoint Research said.
Samsung led smartphone markets in Latin America and the MEA region but came in second in North America and Europe behind Apple, the data showed.
(Yonhap)
