Our Q3 mobile handset market numbers have been released and there are few surprises. Smartphone sales are growing, over 12% up on the same period last year despite the recession, with Apple overtaking RIM in Western Europe. That’s impressive, but it will be more of a shock to RIM when Apple overtake them in the US – which will happen at some point. Nokia lost a little market share but are still the biggest manufacturer of handsets by far holding on to about 36% which isn’t too bad considering their high end smartphone portfolio is weak. Both Motorola and SonyEricsson had a horrible quarter, under 5% share in each case, Motorola’s Android handsets are still too new to have made any impact on their market share.
Looking at platforms, the losers were Symbian and Windows Mobile, although the former can better afford to lose a few points of share as it’s still a long way ahead of the pack. The winners were RIM, iPhone and Android, although the latter is starting from such a small market share that it still makes up only 3.5% of smartphones. So no big surprises, things still look on track for our prediction that Android will become the number 2 platform in 3 years. Although Symbian is strong, it’s mostly because of Nokia; the move to open source hasn’t yet attracted lots of new handset manufacturers. Symbian (i.e. Nokia) can’t afford to stand still, the foundation should nuke the current feeble Symbian user interface as soon as possible and re-invent it, but I don’t see that happening until 2010.
The smartphone platform wars are a numbers game. Ultimately it’s all about creating positive feedback loops. Developers will go where the most users are, users will want platforms which have the best developers and the largest range of applications and content. Of course not all users are alike, Apple has attracted more than its share of compulsive downloaders, so their developers can make a living from a smaller number of more active users. But in the long term it won’t be the early adopter app-addicts who define the market, it will be the mainstream subscribers. They may not suffer from the same level of download addiction, but there sure are a lot of them.
If you need more information about the handset market in Q3 and you’re a client you should talk to Carolina Milanesi or Roberta Cozza. I’ll get on a plane for Sydney tomorrow evening, so will be offline for a day, and jet lagged for a few days more. See you next week.
15 responses so far ↓
1 Tweets that mention Winners and losers in our Q3 numbers -- Topsy.com // Nov 16, 2009 at 7:57 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Matt Asay and Paulo Vilela, belindaparmar. belindaparmar said: RT @mjasay: Android will become the number 2 platform in 3 years http://bit.ly/2N9YDA [...]
2 uberVU - social comments // Nov 16, 2009 at 10:00 am
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by mjasay: Winners and losers in Gartner’s Q3 mobile OS numbers (Symbian + Windows down, iPhone, Android, RIM up) http://bit.ly/2N9YDA…
3 Android vs Symbian « Gajah Item // Nov 17, 2009 at 6:18 am
[...] Gartner expects Android to become the second-most popular mobile platform within the next few years as it continues to gobble up Symbian’s declining market share. [...]
4 Five ways Android could get into trouble | Open Source | ZDNet.com // Nov 17, 2009 at 11:43 am
[...] into the key Christmas selling season, Android is eating Windows for lunch. New (non-Google) development centers are continuing to open, new manufacturers are coming on [...]
5 How Microsoft Blew It With Windows Mobile | IXPLORA - Mobile Phone News and General Tech News and Discussion // Nov 17, 2009 at 7:41 pm
[...] has lost nearly a third of its smartphone market share since 2008, research firm Gartner reports. Windows Mobile had 11 percent of the global smartphone market in the third quarter of 2008, according to Gartner, and last [...]
6 Opera Mobile 10 Beta, Windows Mobile Telefonlara Geldi! | As Matematik // Nov 18, 2009 at 7:01 am
[...] Gartner‘ın 2009 yılının üçüncü çeyreğini konu alan mobil işletim sistemi pazarına dair çıkarttığı son rapora göre pazar payı %7.9′a kadar gerileyen Windows Mobil işletim sistemi için Mobile 7 bir çıkış olabilir. Microsoft’un tüm gücüne ve Windows 7′nin marifetlerine rağmen mobil pazarda Apple, RIM ve Android’in yükselişine yetişebileceklerini zannetmiyorum. [...]
7 Ozzie Misses the Point, says Apps Don’t Matter // Nov 18, 2009 at 7:57 pm
[...] alright. A lousy one. That’s one reason Microsoft’s global smartphone market share has dropped from 11 percent in 2008 to 7.9 percent today. In the meantime, Apple and RIM have seen their market [...]
8 iPhone Stuff » Ozzie Misses the Point, says Apps Don’t Matter // Nov 18, 2009 at 10:00 pm
[...] undergo alright. A lousy one. That’s digit think Microsoft’s orbicular smartphone mart deal has dropped from 11 proportionality in 2008 to 7.9 proportionality today. In the meantime, Apple and RIM hit [...]
9 Why is Google Android beating Symbian? | // Nov 19, 2009 at 1:21 am
[...] Gartner expects Android to become the second-most popular mobile platform within the next few years as it continues to gobble up Symbian’s declining market share. [...]
10 A few thoughts on the Samsung Omnia II - TechnoCité // Nov 25, 2009 at 6:03 pm
[...] have fun with it as developers rush to create new apps. And since Windows Mobile has a such a small share of the global smartphone market, you can be sure few of them are really [...]
11 A few thoughts on the Samsung Omnia II - Canada.com Technology // Nov 25, 2009 at 6:13 pm
[...] have fun with it as developers rush to create new apps. And since Windows Mobile has a such a small share of the global smartphone market, you can be sure few of them are really [...]
12 Hebben » Apple iPhone haalt Windows Mobile in // Dec 17, 2009 at 3:42 am
[...] uit deze internationale cijfers blijkt dar Windows Mobile afgelopen jaar veel marktaandeel verloor (-28%). Inmiddels heeft Microsoft toegegeven dat heeft zitten dromen, waardoor smartphones met [...]
13 Will developers be the next battleground in smartphones? | Open Source Blog // Dec 22, 2009 at 2:00 pm
[...] couple of weeks ago, Gartner issued a market report indicating that Microsoft’s share of the smartphone market had fallen to less than 8 percent [...]
14 William // Dec 23, 2009 at 3:39 pm
How about Market shares of phones with Brew?
15 Nick Jones // Dec 24, 2009 at 9:34 am
We can certainly provide that, becasue we can estimate it as a proportion of the CDMA handsets. However, you’d have to ask that question of one of the handset market prediction specialists such as Carolina Milanesi.
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