Samsung plans to double its smartphone share by end of year, jump ahead of HTC and Motorola

More than 10% of worldwide smartphone market share: that’s where Samsung plans to be, on triple its current handset volume, by the end of 2010 according to Lee Donjoo, senior VP of the company’s Mobile Communications division. Mind you, such a jump would be staggering in terms of growth with Samsung owning less than 5% of global smartphone market share currently. A move to 10% would place them at number 4 globally according to IDC’s numbers, behind Nokia, RIM, and Apple. The Android-lovin’ Galaxy S / AT&T Captivate is good, but is it that good? We’ll see. Regardless, the term “smartphone” can be defined many ways, and we suspect that Samsung’s new Bada OS being pushed into devices previously classified as featurephones could help pad Samsung’s numbers.

Samsung plans to double its smartphone share by end of year, jump ahead of HTC and Motorola originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Jun 2010 04:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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IDC and Gartner award smartphone growth prizes to Apple and Google

Get ready to rumble, the latest Gartner and IDC smartphone numbers are out to give us a pretty good idea of how things shape up globally. Remember, IDC measures vendor shipments while Gartner measures actual handset sales to end users. So what does the data tell us? Well, to start with, in terms of smartphone devices, Gartner claims a 48.7% increase in smartphone sales of 54.3 million units in Q1 2010 compared to Q1 2009 — IDC pegs growth at 56.7% on 54.7 million units for the same period. Both estimates easily outpace the 17% or 21.7% growth in worldwide units of mobile phones moved according to Gartner and IDC, respectively.

IDC’s list of top 5 smartphone device makers (pictured after the break) has Nokia at the number one spot repeating its 39.3% share as it did in Q1 of 2009 while RIM is down slightly from 20.9% in 2009 to a 19.4% market share in 2010. Apple (up from 10.9% to 16.1%) more than doubled its device shipments in the last year as HTC (up from 4.3% to 4.8%) and Motorola (up from 3.4% to 4.2%) all managed to increase their shares on higher volumes.

Regarding smartphone OS market share, Android’s global numbers echo its success in the US jumping from a 1.6% market share to 9.6% in just one year. Gartner claims that sales of Android-based phones increased 707% year-on-year to displace Windows Mobile in the top 5 for the first time. Apple’s iPhone OS also saw growth from 10.5% in 1Q09 to 15.4% in 1Q10 as both RIM (down from 20.1% to 19.4%) and Symbian (down from 48.8% to 44.3%) dropped. See the OS numbers broken down into a no-nonsense table after the break.

Continue reading IDC and Gartner award smartphone growth prizes to Apple and Google

IDC and Gartner award smartphone growth prizes to Apple and Google originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 May 2010 04:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iSuppli finds worldwide cellphone shipments are up 13.8 percent, Motorola’s share slipping

We’ve already seen Motorola’s market share slip a bit when it comes to US cellphone shipments, and it looks like the news is even worse for the company on a global scale. According to iSuppli’s latest numbers — which back up some earlier reports — while worldwide cellphone shipments rose a healthy 13.8 percent in the first quarter of 2010, Motorola slipped from sixth to eighth spot in the global rankings, selling a total of 8.5 million phones compared to 14.7 million during the same period a year earlier. As you can see in the helpful chart above (with sales indicated in thousands), Motorola’s loss came largely at the expense of considerable gains from market leaders Nokia and Samsung, with LG, RIM and Apple also seeing some smaller but significant gains. And, yes, this news also means that Motorola is also now in a neck and neck race with ZTE, for what it’s worth.

[Thanks, Katie]

iSuppli finds worldwide cellphone shipments are up 13.8 percent, Motorola’s share slipping originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 May 2010 19:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NPD: Android ousts iPhone OS for second place in US smartphone market

“We’re number two” might not be the chant everyone’s after, but we have a feeling that Google is more than satisfied with that in this case… for now. According to market research firm NPD, Google’s Android operating system edged up into second place in the US smartphone market during the first quarter of the year, leaving it still well behind RIM’s BlackBerry OS, but marking the first time that it has moved ahead of Apple’s iPhone OS. Specifically, NPD found that RIM maintained a strong 36 percent market share for the quarter, with Android coming in at 28 percent, and iPhone OS in third at 21 percent. The growth for Android was attributed largely to strong carrier support — like Verizon’s buy-one-get-one free offer which, incidentally, also helped Verizon maintain a 30 percent smartphone market share, which is just slightly behind AT&T at 32 percent, and ahead of T-Mobile and Sprint at 17 and 15 percent, respectively.

Disclaimer: NPD’s Ross Rubin is a contributor to Engadget.

Continue reading NPD: Android ousts iPhone OS for second place in US smartphone market

NPD: Android ousts iPhone OS for second place in US smartphone market originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 May 2010 12:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD to ship chips in 109 laptops this year?

Fresh off its world-dominating streak in the desktop graphics market, AMD set sights on notebook territory; now, according to “people familiar with the matter,” the company’s scored a big win there, too. Sources told Reuters that the chipmaker’s notebook CPUs will power 109 different laptops over the months to come, compared to only 40 laptop models last year. It seems part of the newfound success is attributable to HP — which announced twelve mainstream ‘tops just last week — but we’re more interested in the mysterious quad-core Phenom II X4 machines leaking out the likes of Acer and Dell. What can we say? We’re suckers for a surprise, especially of the portable, multi-threaded variety.

AMD to ship chips in 109 laptops this year? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 May 2010 22:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ComScore: Samsung edges out Motorola in US mobile market share

Well, it doesn’t look like the news is getting any better for Motorola these days — ComScore’s latest report finds that the company has slipped from its top spot in US market share among mobile OEMs into a virtual tie with Samsung and LG, with Samsung edging out Motorola by just “a fraction of a percent.” They’re followed by RIM and Nokia, who are now in a tie for a distant fourth place at 8.3%, and Apple, which is said to have a five percent share. Of course, these stats are just part of a broader report, but the rest of the results are a bit less surprising — Verizon and AT&T are virtually unchanged in their position as the number one and two carriers at 31.1% and 25.2%, respectively, and the total number of subscribers in the country now stands at 234 million, of which 63.7% send text messages, 30.1% use a web browser, and 28.6% use downloaded apps.

ComScore: Samsung edges out Motorola in US mobile market share originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 May 2010 15:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Internet Explorer market share falls below 60 percent for first time, according to NetApplications

NetApplications has just released its browser market share stats for the month of April, and there is something notable here: Internet Explorer has fallen to a “historic low” of 59.95 percent market share, losing about 0.69 points since last month. Google’s Chrome continues its assault on Safari, reaching a 6.73 percent share (while Safari nabbed 4.72). Of course, Internet Explorer is still so far ahead of the rest of the pack it’s hard to make these losses — however significant — into a tragedy of epic proportions story for Microsoft, so we’re not going to do that. Keep in mind, as well, that NetApplications is not the only measurement of market share — and StatCounter, by comparison, currently estimates IE’s share at about 51.42 percent. Hit up the source link for the full battery of data.

Internet Explorer market share falls below 60 percent for first time, according to NetApplications originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 May 2010 19:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Report: iPad grabbed 0.03 percent of all web traffic in its first week on earth

Yesterday, when Apple announced it was pushing back the international launch of the iPad until the end of May, high demand was cited — over 500,000 units delivered, it said. And today, we’ve got a report out from NetApplications that indicates the iPad might be quickly making inroads with users. Over the first week of the device’s public availability, the report says, the iPad nabbed about 0.03 percent of all web traffic. For comparison, the iPhone averages about 0.51 percent of traffic. This number nearly matches web traffic for BlackBerrys in March — 0.04 percent (Android grabbed up 0.07 percent, as did Windows Mobile). Of course, NetApplications tracks only a sampling of website traffic to gather its data, so we’ll keep our eyes peeled for longer term trends.

Report: iPad grabbed 0.03 percent of all web traffic in its first week on earth originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Apr 2010 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android’s American market share soars, WinMo pays the price

Mobile manufacturer and platform market share stats for the US are in for the month of January thanks to comScore, and as usual, they tell a fascinating (and somewhat unpredictable) story of what’s actually going on at the cash registers. Motorola — which has long since fallen off its high horse on the global stage — still maintains a commanding presence in the American market by representing some 22.9 percent of all subscribers, though that’s down 1.2 percent from October 2009; that’s particularly interesting in light of the Droid’s success, and a possible sign that smartphones still aren’t on the cusp of dominating the phone market overall. Samsung recently touted the fact that it had held onto the States’ overall market share crown, though Sammy was undoubtedly referring to sales, not subscribers — in other words, there are still a ton of legacy RAZRs out there inflating Moto’s stats.

Turning our attention to smartphone platforms, BlackBerry OS, iPhone, and Android all saw gains, while Windows Mobile and Palm both saw significant downturns. You might use Palm’s loss of 2.1 percent of overall market share in a single quarter as a big nail in webOS’ coffin, but we’re inclined to believe this includes legacy devices — and considering the huge installed base of Palm OS-based handsets (Centros, for instance) that are coming off contract these days, it’s neither surprising nor alarming to see that kind of drop. Android’s gain, meanwhile, likely comes in large part from WinMo’s whopping four percent loss — it’s no secret that WinMo 6.x is well past its expiration date with customers leaving in droves (even before Windows Phone 7 Series announcement), and our informal observations lead us to believe that many of those folks are heading for Android. After all, it’s kind of convenient that Android gained 4.3 percent and WinMo lost about the same, isn’t it? BlackBerrys still dominate the American smartphone landscape, and the iPhone market looks like it might be mature for the time being — Apple added just 0.3 percent to its market share in the quarter, possibly a sign that folks are holding out for whatever Cupertino brings us come Summer. Is this a sign that Palm needs to step up its game yet again? Undoubtedly — but at the same time, we wouldn’t call the loss of those Palm OS subscribers a death knell just yet.

Android’s American market share soars, WinMo pays the price originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Gearlog, Fortune  |  sourcecomScore  | Email this | Comments

Gartner: Apple, Android, and RIM winners in 2009 smartphone growth, Nokia and Symbian still dominate

Gartner just released its annual numbers for worldwide mobile phone sales to end users in the year known as two thousand nine. Looking at smartphone OS market share alone, Gartner shows the iPhone OS, Android, and RIM making the biggest gains (up 6.2, 3.4, and 3.3 percentage points from 2008, respectively) at the expense of Windows Mobile (off 3.1 percentage points) and Symbian (off 5.5 points). Although Gartner says that Symbian “has become uncompetitive in recent years,” (ouch) it concedes that market share is still strong especially for Nokia; something backed up by Nokia’s Q4 financials and reported quarterly smartphone growth by 5 percentage points. Regarding total handsets of all classifications sold, Nokia continues to dominate with 36.4% of all sales to end users (down from 38.6% in 2008) while Samsung and LG continue to climb at the expense of Motorola (dropping from 7.6% to 4.5% of worldwide sales in 2009) and Sony Ericsson. See that table after the break or hit up the source for the full report.

Continue reading Gartner: Apple, Android, and RIM winners in 2009 smartphone growth, Nokia and Symbian still dominate

Gartner: Apple, Android, and RIM winners in 2009 smartphone growth, Nokia and Symbian still dominate originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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