For the first time in history, smartphone sales overtake those of feature phones

Regardless of whether you choose to take a stoic, or a more dramatic stance on this, the fact is that, if numbers from Gartner are to be trusted, we've finally crossed into the next frontier. Said more explicitly, for the first time in history smartphones have overtaken feature phones in sales volume.

So let's talk numbers: 435 million, that's how many mobile phones have been sold worldwide for the second quarter. Of those, 225 million are smartphones, a gargantuan increase of 46.5% on year. The remaining 210 million all fall in the rapidly shrinking category of feature phones, which took a 21% hit in total sales, compared with the same period last year.

The research company further goes on to report a few notions that we've been entertaining for a short while now: Android is nearing world domination with 79% market share, a jump from 64.2% for the same period last year. Usual suspect Samsung, is, of course, culpable for most of it, having moved some 71 million devices in total, taking the lion's share of total worldwide sales with 31.7% – up from 29.7% in Q2 2012.

The story of California-based Apple is sounding a tad different, though, with smartphone sales increasing from 28.9 million to 31.9 million. Unfortunately for Apple, since worldwide smartphones sales have been exploding exponentially, the 3 million or so increase in shipments actually meant that Cupertino saw its worldwide share shrink to 14.2%, down from 18.8% during last year's Q2.

The now firmly established third – Windows Phone – is trailing its two rivals far behind, with 3.3% of end users adopting its wares, or 7.4 million devices. Those are both up from 2.6% and 4 million, respectively, compared with the same period last year. While achieving Microsoft's goal to become the third mobile OS, the still fledgling platform is once again reminded of its shortcomings:

Feel welcome to check the gallery below for a more visual disclosure.

source: Gartner
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