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Gartner: Apple leads the way among smartphone vendors, Android sees slight decline
Gartner's latest bundle of smartphone stats has just hit the wires, bringing with it some encouraging news for the folks in Cupertino. According to the firm's Q4 report, Apple finished 2011 as the world's top smartphone vendor by market share (19 percent), thanks to a Q4 that saw the company grab 23.8 percent of the market. During the quarter, Apple sold some 35.5 million handsets to end users, marking a mildly insane 121.4 percent increase from Q4 2010. This surge also helped Apple overtake LG to become the world's third largest seller of all mobile phones, with a 7.4 percent market share last quarter, trailing only Nokia (23.4 percent) and Samsung (19.4 percent). Nokia, in fact, saw some of its lead wither away during Q4, with sales dropping 8.7 percent over the year, to 111.7 million units. On the OS front, meanwhile, Android continues to dominate Q4 with 50.9 percent of the smartphone market, but that's slightly down from the previous quarter, when it grabbed a little less than 53 percent. Gartner attributes some of this to increased sales of the iPhone 4S, though it expects iOS' share to decline over the next "couple of quarters," as fewer users upgrade to the company's latest handset. For more insight and analysis, check out the full press release, after the break.
IDC and Gartner: US PC sales still sluggish, Apple, Toshiba see jumps in market share
IDC and Gartner have once again released dueling reports on the state of the PC market and, according to their numbers, the landscape's looking a little different. Gartner estimates that overall PC shipments during Q2 of this year increased by 2.3 percent from the same period last year, more or less concurring with the 2.6 percent global increase that IDC found. Things are looking a bit bleaker in the US, however, where quarterly year-to-year shipments are down (5.6 percent for Gartner, 4.2 percent for IDC), but have increased from Q1 of this year. On the corporate level, HP continues to dominate global shipments according to both reports, followed by Dell and Lenovo, which overtook Acer for third place. Stateside statistics, on the other hand, show a bit more severe shuffling among the top five, with Apple's US market share jumping to nearly 11 percent (good for third place) and Acer tumbling to fifth, thanks to a greater than 20 percent year-to-year decline in market share (see the table, above). In fact, among the top five, only Apple and fourth-place Toshiba increased their market share from Q2 of 2010 -- something that both research firms attributed, in part, to a weak consumer PC market and the rising popularity of tablets, led by the iPad. For a more thorough statistical breakdown, head past the break for a pair of comprehensive press releases.
Gartner: Apple will dominate tablet space for years, Android won't drink its milkshake until after 2015
The inundation of tablets upon these very pages from day to day should give you an idea that manufacturers see this as a golden opportunity to grab a big chunk of a fledgling market. According to Gartner, though, the prospects are a little less rosy -- for the next five years, anyway. Analyst estimates indicate that the tablet market will boom over the next five years, from 17,610,000 units last year to 294,093,000 in 2015. No, not 294,092,000. 294,093,000. Apple will be the dominant force, its market share not dropping below 50 percent until the terminal year of this study. Android will take up the lion share of the other half, with the remaining dredges shared by MeeGo, WebOS, and QNX. The latter, which powers RIM's upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook, is scheduled to have a 10 percent share. That'll be the closest thing to a threat that Google and Apple will face -- if you believe any of this. Update: The figures above are in thousands of units.
Gartner report tells corporations to get moving on the iPad
In a private report to clients, the Gartner research firm is urging CEOs to clear any obstacles preventing IT departments from taking advantage of the iPad. Stephen Prentice, a VP and Gartner fellow, said in the report: "It is not usually the role of the CEO to get directly involved in specific technology device decisions, but Apple's iPad is an exception. It is more than just the latest consumer gadget. CEOs and business leaders should initiate a dialog with their CIOs about if they have not already done so." That's quite a turnaround for Apple in big business. Often IT departments shun Apple products. However, when the iPhone launched, CEOs around the world told their technical staffs that they wanted their corporate infrastructure to work with the iPhone. The same thing appears to be happening with the iPad. Gartner is urging companies to work out a plan for widespread iPad support by mid-2011. Prentice added: "While there are no certainties, the iPad looks set to become a market-disrupting device, like the iPod before it. Even if you think it is just a passing fad, the cost of early action is low, while the price of delay may well be extremely high." Quite a vote of confidence, eh? Is the iPad sneaking into your company, or has it been invited? Share your thoughts and stories below. [Via MacNN]
