Gartner: Windows Phone grew 123% YoY in Q3, is “the real winner of this quarter”

After IDC’s numbers from earlier this week, the next most respected market analysts is Gartner, and they have now released their own view of the 3rd quarter of 2013.

Of note is that while IDC talks in shipments, Gartner claims to count sales to end users, and by their calculations 8.9 million people have purchased a new Windows Phone in Q3 2013.

That accounts for 3.6% of the market, up from 2.3%, for a 123% Year on Year growth.

Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner notes:

“…the winner of this quarter is Microsoft which grew 123 percent. Microsoft announced the intent to acquire Nokia’s devices and services business, which we believe will unify effort and help drive appeal of Windows ecosystem.”

In contrast Apple’s market share was down more than 2 points to 12.1%, and Gupta writes:

“While the arrival of the new iPhones 5s and 5c had a positive impact on overall sales, such impact could have been greater had they not started shipping late in the quarter. While we saw some inventory built up for the iPhone 5c, there was good demand for iPhone 5s with stock out in many markets.”

It is of note that many are claiming the iPhone’s market share is down due to a delayed release of Apple’s new phones, while in fact the iPhone 5 was released on the 21st September, while the iPhone 5S was released on the 20th September.

Android has grown to 81% of the market, with 41% of sales being in China.

In total more than 250 million smartphones were sold, for growth of more than 45% YoY.

More than 455 million phones were sold in total, with Nokia’s feature phone segment combined with their Lumia’s earning them 13.8% of the market, for around 63 million handsets and second place in the market, behind Samsung with 25.7%.  This is down from 82 million handsets the year before, and it will be interesting to see how Microsoft manages this legacy but still very influential element.

Gartner notes:

Nokia: Nokia did better than anticipated in the third quarter of 2013, reaching 63 million mobile phones, thanks to sales of both Lumia and Asha series devices. Increased smartphone sales supported by an expanded Lumia portfolio, helped Nokia move up to the No. 8 spot in the global smartphone market. But regional and Chinese Android device manufacturers continued to beat market demand, taking larger share and creating a tough competitive environment for Lumia devices.

See the full report at Gartner here.