Led by Samsung, smartphones outship featurephones in West Europe

According to a new report from research firm IDC, smartphone shipments are now outpacing featurephone shipments in West Europe. During Q2, featurephone shipments in the region declined 29% year-over-year to 20.4 million units while smartphones shipments rose 49% to 21.8 million units. That is the first time that smartphones have surpassed the more basic handsets in West Europe. Total handset shipments declined 3% thanks to the tough economy in the area, but smartphones controlled 52% of the total.

So which company was the top handset manufacturer in the area during the last quarter? Thanks to the amazing success of the Samsung Galaxy S II, one out of every three handsets shipped in Western Europe during Q2 had the Samsung brand., That worked out to 13.9 million handsets, a 29% increase from 2010's second quarter when Samsung controlled one out of every four handsets sold. A stunning 44% decline in shipments from 16.2 million to 9 million took Finnish based Nokia's marketshare down to 9% from a 37% share last year. It was good enough for a second place finish (no pun intended). The biggest increase in share had to do with Android, as being tethered to the green robot boosted HTC's shipments by 121%  year-over-year to 3.1 million, placing them fourth behind Apple. The Cupertino based firm shipped 4.6 million Apple iPhone units in Q2, a 64% increase from the prior year and enough for an 11% slice of the pie and third place. In fifth place for the quarter was RIM. The BlackBerry maker increased shipments by 15% to 3 million for a 7% marketshare.

Remember HTC's huge jump for the period? It was certainly helped by Android which had an amazing 352% increase in shipments from last year's figure. That works out to a leading market share among mobile OS challengers with a 48.5% slice.

source: mocoNews.net via Engadget