Apple to ship 86 million iPhones in '11, researcher says - By Aby Benedict

DigiTimes predicts that Apple will lead the way in total smartphone shipments this year.

(Credit: DigiTimes Research)

Apple will lead all smartphone vendors in total shipments this year, DigiTimes Research predicted today.

According to the market research arm of the Taiwan-based news site, 462 million smartphones are expected to ship worldwide this year, up 60 percent compared with the 288 million smartphones shipped last year. Apple is expected to lead all vendors this year with 86.4 million iPhones shipped, representing an 81.9 percent gain over last year when 47.5 million iPhones shipped.

Nokia, which led the smartphone market last year with 100.3 million units shipped, will ship just 74.4 million smartphones this year, representing a 25.8 percent drop, DigiTimes Research predicts. Samsung will witness extremely strong growth by the end of 2011, seeing its smartphone shipments rise 191.3 percent year over year to settle at 67 million shipments this year.

Companies in China, namely Huawei and ZTE, will see the strongest growth this year with shipments growing 484.4 percent and 330.3 percent, respectively, DigiTimes Research says. That said, their 2011 shipments will only hit 18.7 million and 14.2 million units, respectively.