Australians still buy 100,000 feature phones a quarter

Vendors shipped 2.16 million mobile phones in Australia during 2017's second quarter, 100,000 of which were feature phones.

So says an analyst from IDC's Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, which says this year's total topped Q2 2016 by 330,000, for 18.4 per cent year-on-year growth.

The feature phones were 3G‑capable, a necessary feature given the shutdown of 2G networks down under.

Apple remains Australia's dominant vendor, with 37 per cent of the market, but that leaves Android as the dominant antipodean operating system. That's a big shift because in Q4 2016, Apple's iOS held 54 per cent market share.

IDC says some big Android handset launches have swung things towards Google's mobile OS. Samsung's the main culprit here, as the launch of the Galaxy S8 saw its market share leap from Q1 2017's 23 per cent to 34 per cent in Q2.

Huawei has 4 per cent of the market, a smidgen behind OPPO and Alcatel on 5 per cent. ZTE and Telstra, lumped together because Telstra's own-brand phones are made by ZTE, have 6 per cent of the market.

IDC opines that sales should stay strong for the rest of the year, with the arrival of Amazon and the return of Nokia tipped to spur further interest among buyers. ®