Sales of smartphones are decreasing this year

The growth in global revenues of smartphones will slow this year, before the arrival to the market of lower price devices, which would affect the average selling prices, said Thursday the Gartner research firm.

The demand in mature markets like North America and Europe is decreasing, that is why Samsung and Apple, the leading manufacturers, are introducing cheaper models to new markets.

In the fourth quarter of 2013 there was a weaker demand in more expensive phones, with a decline in the market shares of Samsung and Apple.

In the opposite direction, the market share of Huawei of china has climbed, driven by an increase of 85 per cent in sales of smartphones, with an expansion outside its home market.

According to Gartner, the market share of Samsung fell to 29.5 percent from 31.1 percent in the previous year, while Apple saw a drop to 17.8 percent from 20.9 percent, and Huawei’s grew to 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter from 4.2 percent.