According to figures recently released by Gartner, Apple, RIM and Android were the big winners when it came to smart phone growth in 2009. Nokia and Symbian, however, still very much dominates the landscape, but their growth has been on a decline and slowing significantly.
Gartner shows Android increasing its market share by some 3.5 percentage points, while Apple, on the other hand, saw its market share increase by a very healthy 6.2 percent. Gartner also mentions that Android's success in the future is likely to increase as more manufacturers add more Android products, but it's not guaranteed as they state below:
“Android's success experienced in the fourth quarter of 2009 should continue into 2010 as more manufacturers launch Android products, but some CSPs and manufacturers have expressed growing concern about Google's intentions in the mobile market,” Ms Cozza said. “If such concerns cause manufacturers to change their product strategies or CSPs to change which devices they stock, this might hinder Android's growth in 2010.”
The really big losers, however, in the overall smart phone race were Windows Mobile and Symbian, which declined by some 3.1 % and 5.5% respectfully. Again, as stated above, Nokia, despite its recent decline, still leads with some 36.4 % of the market. As far as the rest goes, their rankings of Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating Systems, are as follows:
- Research In Motion - 19.9 %
- iPhone OS - 14.4 %
- Windows Mobile - 8.7 %
- Linux - 4.7 %
- Android - 3.9 %
- WebKit - 0.7 %
- All other OSs - 0.6 %
One thing of note, and of particular interest to me, regarding the Linux numbers, is that Android and WebKit are both Linux based OSs, so you could easily argue that Linux's real numbers are a much more respectable 9.3 % of the market!
The rise of the two market growth leaders, Apple and Android, has been nothing short of astounding, but the big question will they be able to continue leading that growth now that Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 Series will be hitting the market later this year? That's hard to say, because even though a lot of people have been wowed by Microsoft's recent mobile OS, they still have a lot of challenges ahead of them, such as attracting developers to write apps for it , especially considering how some of those developers actually really feel about Windows Phone 7 Series, that might not be as easy as Microsoft would have hoped.
In conclusion, the overall smart phone growth ratings will not only depend on just how Microsoft's new offering, as well as others, will be perceived, but, more importantly, it will be based on just how much of an impact will Apple's next iPhone make! The iPhone has completely changed the overall dynamics of the smart phone market, and I suspect that its next model, if Apple doesn't completely blow it, will continue to be the biggest factor in de-terming the overall direction and growth of the smart phone market for the foreseeable future, and much more so than the others.
And that's my 2 cents 4 this Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Photo via: DivisTech.com
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