Dubai: New figures released by global technology research firm Gartner show that Nokia is clearly the market leader by sales of smartphones and less expensive feature phones in the Middle East and Africa (MEA).

Contrary to public perception that the iPhone and BlackBerry lead the pack in the region as the preferred choices for smartphone buyers, Gartner second-quarter figures show that Nokia sold more smartphones than any other manufacturer.

Second-quarter figures for the region have not been released publicly and were provided by Gartner at Gulf News' request.

Gartner gathers its numbers quarterly from each of the phone manufacturers independently and then crunches the numbers for analysis.

"Nokia is still the leader in smartphones as well as all phones in this market due to its strong brand recognition it has enjoyed over the past years and good value for money it has to offer," said Annette Zimmermann, principal analyst from Gartner offices in Munich.

"In the Middle East and Africa, Symbian will remain the most preferred platform during 2011. Nokia also recently introduced full Arabic language support for its Ovi store. Regional customisation has always been one of Nokia's strengths and something that other competing platforms do less of," she said.

Rising sales

Figures reveal across both the Middle East and Africa that Nokia sold 21.8 million devices in total both in smartphones and feature phones to claim 51 per cent of the regional market, more than all of its competitors combined.

Regionally, Samsung was ranked second in sales with 6.3 million units sold for 14.8 per cent of the market with Research in Motion coming in third with 2.4 million units sold for 7.8 per cent of the market.

As for regional smartphone sales only, Nokia was still the dominant manufacturer in the second quarter in the region with sales of 3.2 million Symbian units to take 41.9 per cent of the Middle East and Africa market.

Research in Motion ranked second for smartphone sales, Gartner said, with 2.4 million units sold representing 31.7 per cent of the market. Android took third spot with one million smartphones sold for 13.7 per cent of the market.

Zimmermann said analysis predicts, however, that Nokia's Symbian market share will erode in coming years as it moves to the Windows 7 platform.

"Android is growing share in this region thanks to the many device manufacturers who are backing this platform.

Nokia is currently in a transition phase so we will see Symbian's share decline over the next 2-3 years, while at the same time Microsoft's share will grow rapidly as Nokia adopts the Windowsphone 7 platform," she said.

Android-based phones are expected to grow stronger in the market as the platform "is moving down the price-tiers in this market as the device vendors who support Android want to push their phones to the mass market.

Examples are devices from ZTE, Huawei as well as Micromax. In the Middle East and Africa we expect Android to become the leading platform later in 2012," Zimmermann said.

Android surge

Canalys reported that Android has taken almost 50 per cent of the global market with in "excess of 107.7 million units shipped in the second quarter of 2011" an increase of 73 per cent year on year.

Hamza Saleem, senior research analyst, IDC Middle East, Turkey and Africa, said figures showing Nokia's dominance in the region are not surprising given the Finnish phone maker's longstanding relationship with consumers in the region.

"As Nokia churns out cheaper Symbian phones in an MEA market that has always been very pro Nokia," Saleem told Gulf News. "These phones have seen a good demand and Nokia has the low end of the market covered, which in the end does the bulk of the Nokia sales."

A slower growing demand for Android in the region is also helping Nokia stay on top, he said.

"The Android phones still have to see the same US and European uptake. Nokia still seems to have a foothold after many tries by Samsung to uproot them," Saleem said from Dubai offices.

"App stores which have made these Androids famous still don't have the local content needed to succeed here. In addition, the app stores have come late to this market."

Sales of mobile phones grow 8% in quarter

Sales of mobile phones across all designs and features increased in the second quarter across the Middle East and Africa (MEA), said Annette Zimmermann, principal analyst of Gartner.

Figures show that a total of 42.8 million mobile devices were sold in the MEA region. "Sales in the Middle East and Africa grew quarter on quarter by 8 per cent, smartphones grew even more quarter on quarter, by 24 per cent," she said. "Smartphones as a portion of overall sales were 18 per cent in the second quarter, up two percentage points from the first quarter. This shows the growing user interest in devices with open operating systems."