IDC

Gartner: iPhone Q1 sales were "remarkable," considering

Despite higher prices, sales to end users worldwide more than doubled

Gartner issued its "mobile devices" report for the first quarter of 2011, two weeks after rival IDC's.

Here's what Gartner had to say about Apple (AAPL):

Apple sold 16.9 million units to end users worldwide, more than doubling its sales of iPhones year-on-year. This market-beating growth came from all regions: the iPhone is now available in 90 countries from 186 CSPs [communications MORE

IDC: Apple is No. 2 in smartphones

The iPhone could be headed for No. 1 this year as it overtakes RIM and gains on Nokia

The lead that Nokia (NOK) and Research in Motion (RIMM) have enjoyed for years in the smartphone market is evaporating rapidly, according to a report issued Thursday by IDC.

Their immediate problem is Apple (AAPL), which shipped 18.7 million iPhones in Q1 2011, more than double last year's shipments, to overtake RIM's BlackBerry and MORE

Apple's mobile share grew 78%

Meanwhile, Nokia, Samsung and LG all lost market share, according to IDC

Apple's 5% slice of the mobile phone pie chart at right, drawn from IDC numbers released Friday, may not look like much, but consider this:

IDC is counting shipments all over the world, not just the U.S.
IDC is talking about all mobiles, from cheap feature phones to high-end smartphones.
Apple's (AAPL) share grew more than twice as fast as upstarts like MORE

The triumph of 'good enough' computing

The global PC market shrank 3.2% year over year in Q1 2011 as iPad sales surged

It's a pity IDC doesn't include tablets in its quarterly surveys of computer shipments. If it did, the inflection point in the first quarter of 2011 would be even clearer.

[UPDATE: Asymco's Horace Dediu has done us the favor of drawing an extraordinary graph that includes the iPad. It looks like a giraffe. Click here.]

IDC had MORE

2011 will be the year Android explodes

Ever-improving networks and a big hardware announcement that will send handset prices plummeting both point to smartphone growth in 2011 that could totally eclipse anything we've seen before.

Smartphones have been growing at an unbelievable clip over the past year but they still account for only around a third of all phones in the US and an even smaller percentage internationally.  In developing countries, the price of smartphones, aside from some MORE

Today in Tech: "Cyber Monday," George W. Bush, Google and Groupon

Every day, the Fortune staff spends hours poring over tech stories, posts, and reviews from all over the Web to keep tabs on the companies that matter. We've assembled the day's most newsworthy bits below.

"The PC industry's inability to significantly innovate, and its overreliance on a business model predicated on driving volume through price declines, are finally impacting the industry's ability to induce new replacement cycles." -- Gartner Research director George MORE

Missing: 77 million mobile phones

Gartner's and IDC's sales estimates don't always agree, but this is absurd.

Much was made Wednesday in Gartner's latest Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales report, and in subsequent news coverage, of the sudden surge in the sales of so-called "white box" mobile phones in the third quarter of 2010.

According to Gartner, these unbranded phones are being snapped up in such huge numbers in Asia and elsewhere that the major manufacturers have started MORE

Gartner: iPhone sales 'stellar'

But Google's Android now has a quarter of the global smartphone market to Apple's 16.7%

Gartner published its worldwide mobile phone sales estimates overnight Wednesday, nearly two weeks after IDC released its survey. The results, as usual, differ in detail (see explanation below), but the broad picture is the same.

The good news for Apple (AAPL) is that thanks to what Gartner called its "stellar" performance in calendar Q3, Apple has overtaken MORE

How iPhone joined the big boys

Asymco's Horace Dediu, whose spreadsheets of mobile phone data are a seemingly endless source of colorful and informative charts, has produced this one to commemorate Apple's (AAPL) ascension into the top tier of mobile phone -- not just smartphone -- manufacturers (see The iPhone is No. 4).

What strikes me in the chart above is how large Nokia's (NOK) lead still is, how far Motorola (MOT) has fallen and how much MORE

The iPhone is No. 4

With 90%-plus growth, Apple vaults past RIM and is gaining rapidly on Nokia and LG

The iPhone has been one of the world's top selling smartphones almost since it hit the market three years ago. But in the larger, 1.2-billion-units-per-year mobile phone market, it never cracked the top five.

Until now.

In IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker survey, issued late Thursday, Apple (AAPL) overtook Research in Motion (RIMM) to become the MORE