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.
posted February 23rd 2010 5:05AM
@Endadget You're right about the expense issue, but in terms potential smartphone users i.e. those of an older age, I actually know quite a few that are moving over to smart phones. Most of them iPhones, but that's probably down to the iPhone's ease of use.
@sonola777
Market share for any dominant force is bound to shrink now that the market has so competitive, what matters to them is who will come on top in 5 years time.
iPhone made smartphones simple, it was the smartphone for dummies and has done well but still lacks a lot of power features that a segment wants but is a minority now compared to 4 years ago.
Android seems like a good balance of the old and new and will probably dominate the western markets in 5 years with Nokia heading the eastern markets. iPhone is a luxury item and will probably remain a bit player in terms of market share.
@dansus Hate to break it to you, but Android is a Geek, Nerd and Tech enthusiast platform. Just because its used by a lot of manufacturers doesn't meant it will dominate. The idea that strength in shear numbers leads to success doesn't always work. Just ask Microsoft about Windows Mobile. Manufacturers are love Android, but everyday consumers are rejecting their advances.
@sonola777
Where exactly in the report does it say what "everyday consumers" buy?
@Theli It doesn't need to, considering the amount of manufacturer support Android has, you'd expect its numbers to be a lot higher than they are. Fact remains it just doesn't have enough developer support or mind share to change that at the moment, will that change? Maybe.
@sonola777
Manufacturer support is all fine and well, but look at the Nexus One interface - do you really think that's the kind of stuff consumers want in the 21st century? No wonder it was such a blunder in terms of sales. HTC Sense & Co. help, but don't we all know where that leads? In no time Android will be a fragmented mess of a platform unless G do something about it.
Why are Android numbers so low. :( I am quite surprised.
@pk
Gadget blog buzz != sales.
@pk because the truth is however much i love android is that its a nerds phone and there just isnt enough of us to win over enough market share. :(
@(Unverified) Actually, if you look at where it was in 08 (0.5 to 3.9 in 09), its quite a big improvement. However, while the geeks and nerds go gaga over Android, unfortunately for Google, the general consumer couldn't care less.
@pk - Another reason could be that Android remains mostly within US borders, it's pretty much non-existent elsewhere in the world.
I personally like the openness of Android and all, but when compared with other phone OSes (iPhone excluded), it's not ready for the prime-time yet. I think next year's numbers will be totally different.
@sonola777 Until October 2009 Android was limited to T-Mobile (America's smallest carrier). However by March of this year, Android will be available on all 4 major carriers in the US including the big 2 (ATT & Verizon). While the specifics of Android like the dessert themed names of the upgrades are not mainstream, phones like the Droid, MyTouch, G1, Hero all are.
@madmac
Most people who have Nokia smartphones don't buy them as such. And Nokia itself isn't really promoting them as a different category. Could call them feature phones as well. So I'd say that their market share is a result of customer confusion in a way - people don't realize what they own.
Blackberry, Nokia..now is the time to put out some show-stopper products.
Look at these number from Canayls they are just little off here and there but, in the same order. On a worldwide level Apple’s iPhone OS beats Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS - This was posted on Feb 11th, 2010
http://www.machackpc.com/news/on-a-worldwide-level-apples-iphone-os-beats-microsofts-windows-mobile-os/
@vangrieg
Given the rate at which people downloaded the free version of Nokia Maps, it appears that people do know that their Nokia smartphones are smartphones and that they are using them as such.
@vangrieg
Exactly. I know a few N95 users, who just use their phone for calls, messages and taking pictures. They don't even know they can install apps on it.
@xbit
Yes, a lot of people. But probably still far from all of those who could. Remember the userbase is huge.
Wait a minute... how many iPhone did Apple reported were sold? I recall the figure was way higher than 25m..
Accoridng to wikipedia - Units sold 42.48 million (as of Q1 2010)[update]
Where are the rest? or do Apple report how many iphones they sold to operators? I remember reading about that...
@Beastage
The numbers in this article are annual sales. The number you are referring to is the total number of units sold.
@vangrieg The top table is total number of units on the market share currently being used.
@madmac
I didn't say Nokia phones were crappy! What I'm saying is that they put Symbian OS on tons of phones, including miniature candybars, which aren't used as smartphones and people who buy them don't do it because they have excellent usable browsers or can install third-party apps. Even N95 users don't always use their phones as "smart" ones; the majority of Nokia's smartphones would have sold even without "smart" features.
My point isn't that Symbian is inferior (I may think that, but that's another issue totally); I'm just saying that you could replace it with whatever OS Nokia puts on their dumbphones on the overwhelming majority of the models that make up the dominating market share and nobody would notice anything.
This article confuses percentages and points. Engadget fails. I am disappoint.
the might of apple has shown it self once again and yes I hate flash because it's crappy and jobs did a good job taking a stand against it
The iPhone's popularity is as evident as ever- I wonder what it would look like if Nokia, RIM, Android etc only sold ONE flagship device like Apple do. Similarly- how it would go if Apple made also a lightweight, watered down version of the iPhone and a top-end, feature rich version with power-users in mind.. (such as geeks like you and I!)
@vangrieg
That's assuming that other operating systems can support the hardware features.
Do you think that Nokia's dumbphone OS could have handled a 5MP camera, VGA video recording, hardware graphics acceleration, WiFi, etc. back in early 2007? Is it just pure luck that the best camera phones all run Symbian or do the software features play a significant role?
here, I did the math for Engadget :
Symbian's market share lost 5.5 POINTS, growth = -10.5%
Windows Mobile's market share lost 3.1 POINTS, growth = -26.3%
RIM's market share gained 3.3 POINTS, growth = +19.9%
iPhone OS' market share gained 6.2 POINTS, growth = +75.6%
Android's market share gained 3.4 POINTS, growth = +680%
@vangrieg said:
"I didn't say Nokia phones were crappy! What I'm saying is that they put Symbian OS on tons of phones, including miniature candybars, which aren't used as smartphones and people who buy them don't do it because they have excellent usable browsers or can install third-party apps."
What hat did you pull that info from? The fact is the rest of the world is far more smartphone savvy than the US. Many Europeans carry more than one phone. Symbian is loved for ita Swiss Army knife mentality, which is more features than the competition, versatile and diverse form factors and pricing, and reliability.
Those users know what they have, and laugh that w Americans prefer less features and training wheels. What you fail to realize is those small cheap smartphones are functionally equivalent to their larger high end cousins, run the same apps, and are really just the same phones in multiple form factors. None of the "only on Nexus One" crap we see elsewhere.
They also are better developers than their Silicon Valley counterparts, and code their own apps and install on their own. These US developers have nothing on the Indian, British, Russian, and Chinese hackers on the scene. Better ask around.
"Even N95 users don't always use their phones as "smart" ones; the majority of Nokia's smartphones would have sold even without "smart" features.
My point isn't that Symbian is inferior (I may think that, but that's another issue totally); I'm just saying that you could replace it with whatever OS Nokia puts on their dumbphones on the overwhelming majority of the models that make up the dominating market share and nobody would notice anything. "
You bark loud, but with baseless, borderline racist, bigoted comments of assumed American superiority. The facts speak for themselves. We're late to the smartphone game, but those most experienced choose Nokia and Symbian. America has chosen the iPhone because it is allowed to self market, while Nokia and the others are forbidden from making their own commercials. Also, it has an unfairly high subsidy, making its price closer to midrange. In places where people compare real prices and have no subsidy, they rarely choose Apple. They go, "No multitasking, no homebrew apps, weak camera without a flash, no Flash in browser, weak media format support, no alternative browsers, no offline maps, no video chatting, etc." and see a $400 device with all of that and choose accordingly. Americans go, "Its pretty, thin, simple to use, and can access Twitter, Facebook, and GMail," and get happy. Its US in the U.S. that don't get it.
@christexaport
I'm going to go ahead and assume you've never heard of jailbreaking, which fixes about all of those problems.
@christexaport
I'm not American and happen to have at least a dozen friends/acquaintances/colleagues/relatives with Symbian phones. Among them, only two know that they have smartphones. Only one uses the internet on a regular basis, and only because he managed to find and install Opera Mini. This is not a representative scientific climate science modeling, just my experience.
@madmac
"well if you bother to read my original post I was asking on what grounds the symbian os is not competitive when it has over 45% marketshare (and about 55% outside the US) and you really haven't provided answer for that."
Yes you are right, I missed your point then, apologies. I certainly wouldn't call Symbian "not competitive", that would be a stupid statement to make.
It's OK, Palm. I still love you.
/Strokes his Pixi.
um, iphone OS means ipod touch as well right ???
@alext not quite a smartphone though, I doubt it takes the iPod touch into account. This should only be the 3 models of iPhone currently on the market.
Android gains because it kicks ass in many ways and shows the power of the Google brand
Blackberry gains because, despite its shortcomings, people DO care about the things it does better than the rest (see: messaging) and while it could use an overhaul, the state of the OS is nowhere near as critical as palm os or WinMo classic were.
Apple gains because people are tools and don't both to research before they buy.
All makes sense to me
so thats what RIM means.. I thought it involved two men in bed.
I'm not sure why this is a hard concept to grasp, but basically, the iPhone is the Wii of the cellphone market. The interface is dumb and accessible to all types. The device is non-hierarchical, which sits well with many individuals's thinking. So many of the iPhone users I run into are computer illiterate and the iPhone does not require computer literacy of them. The device has a low resolution large screen on purpose, because it's easy to read, for the elderly that the phone was also intended to satisfy. They could have installed a high resolution screen but it's not there for this very reason. As much as I hate Apple for their propaganda, I will not take credit away from the iPhone, where it deserves it.
I did not get an iPhone because I prefer a menu system like most smart phones used to have. I prefer double tap for most things (trying to set this up in WinMo 6.1 still). I prefer a resistive screen with a stylus (well, a capacitive with high precision stylus would be great). I prefer one of the modifiable OS's such as Symbian / Maemo / Linux / WinMo, to a closed OS. I do miss the plethora of "applications" available for the iPhone... some really are very nice. I don't care for games.
Anyway people, fight fair if you're going to fight.
@Please forgive me
It's ok, I forgive you for making a completely useless post.
Even though Android only gained 3.3% I feel that it is the most impressive.
Apple has already had years to become well know as a mobile phone competitor and the iPhone has had years of great press which it deserved. So everyone knows what the iPhone is and yadda yadda so it picked up a ton of new/repeat users in 2009 as a lot of people started going smartphones.
Android in the mass market was a general unknown coming into 2009. Barely anyone even knew what Android was and a vast majority still don't know other than all the marketing that went into the Motorola Droid. So to climb 3.3% from .5% with almost no name recognition to start and only 1 real phone being marketed is very impressive.
I expect Androids 2009 > 2010 jump to be more in the range of 6-7% if not more.
@Atkins 2 years is a very long time. And the amount of phones Android is on doesn't change anything about what I said.
And as others have said, in this chart it is counting ALL phones using iPhone OS. This includes all variations of the original iPhone, iPhone3G and iPhone3GS which at the very least needs to be classified as 3 different handsets.
@Atkins iPhone 3G wasn't sold in 2009??? Oh wait a second....
@Atkins lol, I should have noticed your hopeless threads above this one. My mistake for trying to reason.
Have a nice day :| haha
Must be my ignorance, but I don't see Symbian OS prevalent in US. I see plenty of iPhone, BlackBerry, and recently Android OS based phones (droid and such), some venerable Windows Mobile phones, but Symbian OS? not so much. It baffles me that Symbian OS still taking the largest share of Smartphone pie when I hardly see any phone using that.
@bigvinny
It's probably because the US is only about 5% of the world's population.
Yeah, that'll be it.
@bigvinny rethink that how many nokia phones do you see???
@bigvinny - Yes, definitely your ignorance. It's a great big world out there.
So even with the drops in market share, Windows Mobile still has quite a large presence. Yet still no Engadget app, of course.
@madmac
I think gartner's "uncompetitive" term may be rather misleading. What they mean is that Symbian is an ageing OS; not uncompetitive. The Symbian OS is the single most powerful mobile phone OS at present and is installed on over 1billion phones; most of which are fully capable of smartphone functionality (if the user knows enough to dig beyond the homescreen.
Despite the glitz and glam being thrown on Android and iPhone, Symbian still completely pwns them in sheer functionality and raw out of the box capability.
I think you meant to say "twenty-oh-nine"!