Global mobile phone sales fell in 2012 compared to a year ago. Last year, a total of 1.75 billion handsets were purchased, down 1.8 percent from 2011. Research institute Gartner past In a report published on 13 February This information is reported. One of the firm’s analysts blamed partly on the unfavorable economic conditions.

Gartner says demand for cheap feature phones was low last year, which has had a negative impact on shipments overall. In the fourth quarter of 2012, feature phone sales dropped to just 264.4 million, down 19.3 percent from the last three months of 2011. At the time, Samsung and Apple combined accounted for 52 percent of the smartphone market, the company said.

This is the first time since 2009 that the global mobile phone market has “shrunk”.

According to Gartner data, between October and December last year, 69.7 percent of the smartphones sold were Android and 20.9 percent iOS-enabled devices.

At that time, Google’s Android operating system dominated the market and Apple’s iOS lost shares. However, Gartner reports that gadgets on both platforms have increased sales. Sales of smartphones from various companies based on the Microsoft Windows Phone operating system have also increased. Nokia Lumia series is one of them.

Meanwhile, Firefox browser maker Mozilla and opensource computer operating system Ubuntu sponsor Canonical have announced the launch of their respective smartphone operating systems. All in all, the competition in the mobile market is expected to be good in 2013.