A brand you probably haven't heard of makes Australia's third best-selling phone
Alcatel's flagship phone, the Idol 3. While if you look around the street, you'll likely see people using phones with an Apple or Samsung logo. The surprise is the next most popular brand - Alcatel.
The French- (and Chinese) owned company sold a whopping 261,520 devices in Australia in the final quarter of 2015, according to market intelligence business IDC. That secured the brand third spot in the extremely competitive local smartphone market, with 9.2% market share. Its quarterly growth was big, selling 69% more devices in Q4 than in Q3.
While the numbers are big for Alcatel, they still pale in comparison to market leaders Apple and Samsung. In the same quarter, Apple sold over 1.3 million iPhones, commanding 47.3% of the Australian market, while Samsung sold 632,000 and nabbing 22.2%.
Alcatel, previously called Alcatel One Touch targets the budget audience, promising little-to-no compromise for devices at the price point.
The big quarterly sales boost came off the back of brand partnering with Telstra to build its Essentials Tablet and the Quattro 4G smartphone through the telco's prepaid subsidiary, Boost.
It also launched a new flagship device, the Idol 3, which packs a 5.5-inch display and a high end build for $379, which was positively received.
Globally, Alcatel snuck into the top 5, and predicts it will soon nab the number 4 spot in the United States.
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