Gartner said that smartphone sales to end users had overtaken sales of feature phones for the first time in the second quarter of 2013, with the company standing by its forecast of 1.82 billion units for this full-year.

Rival research firm IDC has already made this claim, previously stating that smartphones were dominating the market during the first quarter of the year, although the discrepancy appears to be based on the definitions used. IDC uses the term “shipments”, which includes sales to retail and operator partners that have not so-far reached customers, while Gartner bases its figures on “sales to end users”.

According to Gartner, some 225 million smartphones were sold in Q2, representing growth of 46.5 per cent year-on-year, while feature phone sales were 210 million units, down 21 per cent.

Asia Pacific (74.1 per cent), Latin America (55.7 per cent) and Eastern Europe (31.6 per cent) showed the highest smartphone growth, although sales grew across all regions.

Samsung was the largest mobile phone vendor during the period, selling 107.53 million units, with Nokia in a solid second position on 60.95 million – giving market shares of 24.7 per cent and 14 per cent respectively. Nokia’s market share is still almost twice that of third-placed Apple (31.9 million units, 7.3 per cent market share), although it is seeing competition from a range of ambitious regional and Chinese manufacturers.

“Flagship devices brought to market in time for the holidays, and the continued price reduction of smartphones, will drive consumer adoption in the second half of the year,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner.