Year-over-year smartphone sales are up 98% worldwide. Over 80 million of the over 400 million handsets sold in the third quarter were smartphones.
The sheer growth of the global market and the meteoric rise of Android means that hardware and software companies who once dominated this market can ship tens of millions additional units and still lose share, in some cases by double digits.
“Smartphone OS providers have entered a period of accelerated platform evolution, stimulated by more regular product releases, new platform entrants and new device types,” said Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza. “Any platform that fails to innovate quickly — either through a vibrant multi-player ecosystem or clear vision of a single controlling entity — will lose developers, manufacturers, potential partners and ultimately users.”
Market share and unit numbers don’t tell us everything, even how profitable a mobile company has become. But they do reveal an evolving space.
Customers in North America, Western Europe, and East Asia — what Gartner’s report calls “mature markets” — are gravitating towards full-featured, name-brand, consumer-oriented smartphones. This seems to be partly a function of wider 3G data capability, greater hardware and software choices, and especially lower prices.
- Company
- 3Q10 Units
- 3Q10 Market Share (%)
- 3Q09 Units
- 3Q09 Market Share (%)
- Symbian
- 29,480.1
- 36.6
- 18,314.8
- 44.6
- Android
- 20,500.0
- 25.5
- 1,424.5
- 3.5
- iOS
- 13,484.4
- 16.7
- 7,040.4
- 17.1
- Research In Motion
- 11,908.3
- 14.8
- 8,522.7
- 20.7
- Windows Mobile
- 2,247.9
- 2.8
- 3,259.9
- 7.9
- Linux
- 1,697.1
- 2.1
- 1,918.5
- 4.7
- Other OS
- 1,214.8
- 1.5
- 612.5
- 1.5
- Total
- 80,532.6
- 100.0
- 41,093.3
- 100.0
Price cuts and growing feature differences make smartphones a much looser, more varied category than it was just a year ago. Gartner’s report singles out ZTE’s sub-£100 Android phone with the UK’s Orange carrier. You could also point to the Motorola Citrus (pictured above), which is being offered as a $180 prepaid at Wal-Mart. Smartphones can be burners now.
Meanwhile, generic manufacturers are cranking out handsets for developing markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Growth in non-3G mobiles isn’t as sharp as smartphones in terms of percentages, but the global distribution is radically different.
This growth on either side squeezes out name-brand midlist feature phones — Gartner’s report singles out LG — who can’t command the prices or share they used to hold through carrier sales in Europe, Asia and North America.
The report closes by predicting that the growth of the media tablet market (projected sales of 54.8 million units) will begin to affect smartphone sales, attracting consumer dollars and developer attention away from some platforms and towards others — especially Apple’s iOS.
It’s a sharp reminder that companies with forthcoming tablets like Samsung or RIM/Blackberry aren’t simply trying to open up new growth areas or slow iPad purchases. These companies need to offer tablets in order to protect their customer and developer relationships in their core businesses — multimedia entertainment for Samsung, smartphones for RIM.
“Apple’s dramatic expansion of iOS with the iPad and the continuing success of the iPod Touch are important sales achievements in their own right,” said Carolina Milanesi. “But more importantly they contribute to the strength of Apple’s ecosystem and the iPhone in a way that smartphone-only manufacturers cannot compete with.”
Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Grew 35 Percent in Third Quarter 2010; Smartphone Sales Increased 96 Percent [Press Release]
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