Smartphone sales growth slowed in Q3: Gartner

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Growth in the global smartphone market slowed to 11.5 percent in the third quarter year on year, the slowest rate of growth since it started tracking smartphone sales, research firm Gartner said on Thursday.

Some 36.5 million smartphones, or handsets with computer-like features such as email, were sold globally in the July-September quarter, Gartner said in a statement.

All vendors are after a bigger slice of the smartphone market, which is set to continue growing next year, but at an even slower rate than in the last quarter, while the wider handset market has a gloomy outlook, Gartner said.

(Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)