The UK saw over 33.6m smartphone shipments and over 12.6m tablet shipments for 2013.

Smartphones continue to be the largest segment from a volume perspective, 9 million units were shipped in 4Q13 and over 33m cumulative units shipped for the whole year. Volumes are expected to be sustained in 2014, supported by product innovation, competition, and fast replacement cycles. Samsung continued to lead the smartphone market, followed by Apple and Sony, with the top 3 covering nearly 75% of the market in 2013. While Apple and Samsung continue to lead the overall device market due to the volume of smartphones, the competitive environment in the three product categories continues to be fragmented

Apple continued to dominate the U.K. tablet market with 4.7 million units shipped in 2013, and maintains the gap with challengers Samsung and Amazon with 2 million and 1.6 million units, respectively. Asus maintained 4th position with its own product line and the Nexus, while the market saw fast growth from several players such as Archos, with the success of the Hudl produced for Tesco in 4Q13, as well as Acer, Lenovo, and HP. 12.6m Tablets were shipped in 2013, a 50% increase from 2012 figures. Growth will naturally slow down as volumes reach high levels, but the market will continue to grow in 2014, supported by continued product expansion while accelerated adoption in the business space will give the market a further uplift from 2H14 onward.

In total, over 56m smart connected devices (PC, Laptop, Smartphone, Tablet) were shipped in the UK during 2013.

(Source: IDC)

No one want to discuss the UK smartphone/tablet market?

Coincidently consumer desktop PC sales are falling and laptops too....

33.6m smartphones seems an awful lot in a year. That's a phone for every other person in the country.

Sorry to bump the thread. But thought I'd post some additional data that I got my hands on recently.

UK Smartphone shipments for CY2013
~11.7m - Samsung
~10.3m - Apple
~3.2m - Sony
~8.4m - Other

Total = ~33.6 million

UK Tablet shipments for CY2013
~4.7m - Apple
~2.0m - Samsung
~1.6m - Amazon
~4.3m - Other

Total = ~12.6 million

2014 outlook-
As of Q3 2014 a total of over 25 million smartphones have been shipped with Samsung once again leading the way.

You would think by those figures, that the market will become saturated. Even the tablet numbers seem incredible.

Well tablet shipments in 2012 were around ~8 million.

2014 is expected to grow YOY compared to 2013.

So the market is still growing. But it's not growing very fast.

And bear in mind, this is shipments, not sell through.

74% of all mobile phone units were sold through traditional retail channels.
26% was sold through Online stores.

57% of all mobile phones were sold through Contracts.
12% were sold through pay as you go
31% were sold off contract and unlocked

The pay as you go market saw the biggest decline down 32% YOY. Contract handset market was up 1.8% YOY.

The average cost of a smartphone in 2013 was £176.

80% of all phones sold through in the UK were smartphones.

I imagine the awful Windows 8 played a part in the rise of the tablet, and maybe even the phablet as well.

A number of you may be interested to know that Google sold a total of:

500,000 Nexus 4/5 smartphone in 2012 and 2013.
524,700 Motorola smartphones in 2012 and 2013.

LG Electronics sold through a total of 1,388,000 smartphones in 2012 and 2013. This means that 36% of the smartphones sold through in the UK by LG went under the Nexus brand.

HTC sold through a total of 2,710,000 units in the UK through 2012 and 2013.

In total, GFK estimates that over 26 million smartphones were sold through via retailers in the UK to the consumer market in 2013.

Please note these figures are sold through to consumer via retail channels in the UK.


Maybe. But then traditional PC's have been on the decline for a while

That would imply there were a lot of cheap smartphones sold.

The average cost of a smartphone worldwide is around ~£195.

Doesn't imply much really.

Which average? With a skewed population like this the best average would be the median.

Does the avg cost include the up front costs on a contract i.e. where you have to pay say £50 for the phone on a 2 year deal.
if so then that avg feeling price sounds fair based on the split between contract and sim only sales

It's as simple as total revenue divided by total number of units sold.

Don't know the specifics. I just have access to raw data.

The top selling UK smartphone is the iPhone 5c so obviously cheap phones win out.

I'd suggest that average smartphone build cost is maybe $50 with the likes of the G and 5c about $80 top whack. If you have read up on Soc prices I can see the upcoming Octa Core 64 bit phones can cost well below $80 to build, ignoring exorbitant software development costs.

Is the top selling smartphone the 5c? I've not seen that breakdown provided. Maybe someone has a link.

I'm also not sure what component build cost has to do with the selling price, but your numbers would confirm that the vast majory of android phones sold must be at the bottom end.

Firstly, no. The iPhone 5C was the top selling smartphone in August 2014. So it was only one month, and does not apply to any of the 2013 data that was posted above.

Secondly this is average buying price for consumers. Not average build price.

It's the average cost people buy a phone for.

Well I rate most of my stuff by build cost. It works in life for me.

So how do you work out which OS to go for which all comes into it when the cost to build the phone does not affect that?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11..._gathers_pace/
"Android bloodbath gathers pace"

An expected result of giving the customer what they want? Did big screens, lots of Ram, memory expansion etc etc all impact on repeat sale potential ?
Saying that, I was still surprised to see that Android L does not have multi-screen as standard (at least on the Nexus 9). That is one customer need omitted.

The story took the line that low cost impacted but. True but the Android innovation at the high price phablet end was done several years ago. And the S4 has 2GB Ram, dual screens etc etc. all similar to the S5.

The average worldwide price of a smartphone is higher than the UK average, I am amazed that is the case