However, fewer people bought smartphones in this quarter compared to a year ago.

There were an estimated 419 million handsets sold in the second quarter of 2012, which is a 2.3% QoQ decline compared to last years 428 million.

General and administrative (G&A) expenses in the second quarter of 2012 were $3.5 million, or 6.7% of revenue, compared with $3.8 million, or 6.2%, in the second quarter of 2011.

Samsung saw the biggest growth, from 70 million phones in Q2 2011 to 90 million (total handsets) in Q2 2012.

According to them, 4 million Windows Phone units were sold in Q2 2012 up from 1.7 million units in Q2 2011.

Thats 16.9% market share for iOS, and even though Apple saw double digit growth in the quarter, IDC points out that it isnt managing to keep up with the overall market.

There were other two surprising winners, Huawei and ZTE, which sold 18 million and 13 million devices respectively.

HTC went from 11 million to 9.3 million (no surprise there), Nokia went from 98 million to 83 million total handsets sold in Q2 2012, and RIM saw a 37% decline, from 12.6 million to 8 million sold devices.

It’s great if you have a ten percent market share in the first quarter that you sell your new product, but what if the industry has been around for years and countless millions of a competitor’s devices already dominate the landscape.

The only reliable way to measure market share is to painstakingly count up all the sales of every product in a single quarter (this article will primarily use this method).

Show full PR textGartner Says Worldwide Sales of Mobile Phones Declined 2.3 Percent in Second Quarter of 2012Android Extended Lead While Apple iOS Market Share Growth PausedEgham, UK, August 14, 2012—Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users reached 419 million units in the second quarter of 2012, a 2.3 percent decline from the second quarter of 2011, according to Gartner, Inc.

Smartphone sales accounted for 36.7 percent of the total mobile phone sales in the period, with a growth of 42.7 percent year on year.

Smartphone sales accounted for 36.7 percent of total mobile phone sales and grew 42.7 percent in the second quarter of 2012.

Demand slowed further in the second quarter of 2012,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. “The challenging economic environment and users postponing upgrades to take advantage of high profile device launches and promotions available later in the year slowed demand across markets.

Demand of feature phones continued to decline, significantly weakening the overall mobile phone market.

High profile smartphone launches from key manufacturers such as the anticipated Apple iPhone 5, along with Chinese manufacturers pushing 3G and preparing for major device launches in the second half of 2012, will drive the smartphone market upward.

However, feature phones will continue to see pressure,” Mr Gupta said.In the second quarter of 2012, Samsung’s mobile phone sales remained very strong — up 29.5 percent from the second quarter of 2011 (see Table 1), and managed to extend its lead over both Apple and Nokia quarter on quarter. This quarter’s growth was driven by record sales of Galaxy smartphones, meaning smartphones now account for 50.4 percent of all Samsung mobile devices, or 45.6 million units. Demand for the new Galaxy S3 was particularly strong, exceeding Samsung’s own expectations, with a reported 10 million units reached in the two months after its release. The Galaxy S3 was the best selling Android product in the quarter and could have been higher but for product shortages.In the second quarter of 2012, consumer demand for the Apple iPhone weakened as sales fell 12.6 percent from the first quarter of 2012, but grew 47.4 percent year on year. Depending on the exact launch date of the new iPhone, Apple might experience another weaker than usual quarter in the third quarter of 2012, while Apple will be ready to take advantage of the strong holiday sales in North America and Western Europe that have historically remained immune to economic pressure.Samsung and Apple continued to dominate the smartphone market, together taking about half the market share, and widening the gap to other manufacturers. No other smartphone vendors had share close to 10 percent,” Mr Anshul said.

“In the race to be top smartphone manufacturer in 2012, Samsung has consistently increased its lead over Apple, and its open OS market share increased to one and a half times that of Apple in the second quarter of 2012.Nokia’s mobile phone sales declined 14.8 percent in the second quarter of 2012. Nokia is battling fiercely with white box and new emerging device manufacturers to defend its feature phones sales. Nokia succeeded, to a certain extent, in winning feature phone market share as its sales grew quarter on quarter. While posting sequential growth in the feature phone market, Nokia’s Lumia devices continue to struggle to find a place in consumers’ minds as a replacement for Android.Declining smartphone sales is worsening Nokia’s overall position, as it had already lost the No. 1 position to Samsung in the previous quarter and is facing reduced profitability due to continuous declining sales of premium smartphones,” said Mr Gupta.

For example, if Pepsi sold 25 percent of all brown carbonated soft drinks in the third quarter of 2010, it would be said to have a 25 percent market share for that quarter.

While Apple’s iOS market share slightly grew year over year (0.6 percent), it declined 3.7 percentage points quarter on quarter, as users postponed their upgrade decisions in most markets ahead of the upcoming launch of the iPhone 5.

Gartner analysts said the arrival of the iPhone 5 should provide the greatest upgrade opportunity yet as the expected new design with a larger screen and likely other stylistic changes to the form factor will certainly make a strong case for iPhone 4 users to upgrade.

Both were very popular mobile operating systems at one time, but in Q2, both slipped below 5% market share.

SOURCES BGR TAGS AndroidAppleHTCHuaweiMarket ShareMicrosoftNokiaRIMZTE NEXT: Asymco: Samsung and Apple earned 99% of all smartphone profits last quarter.

This means that we may see Apple begin to slip before long, but it doesnt have much to worry about at the moment iOS and Android make up 85% of the smartphone market, and Apples numbers for the quarter were good enough to put it in a solid (if not distant) second place.

Julia Macdonald is a business journalist based in Cairns, Australia. Julia has a passion for financial markets and breaking news stories and loves writing about business news, stock market, and economic opinions that matters most to its audience. Julia spends a lot of time discovering and researching latest financial markets and industry news stories in order to make sure the latest and greatest stories are brought to you first on BigBoardNews.com.