IDC had recently reported on Apple attaining a new high by ascending to the top five mobile vendors in India. The latest research from Canalys also talks about Apple topping the U.S charts with a 26 percent share in the smartphone market. Previously this position was held by RIM, but now the company has been moved to the second place with a 15 percent share. However, its important to remember that the company’s recently launched Torch has just seen half a quarter sales.
Overall, in Q3 2010 the market is said to have grown 95 percent more than previous year’s third quarter. Nokia is still sitting placidly on the summit amounting to a 33 percent share albeit with a smaller margin. Astonishingly, the Open Handset Alliance’s (OHA’s) Android from Google takes the lead in the US market with the OS amounting to a 44 percent share.
“With Samsung, HTC, Motorola and Sony Ericsson all delivering large numbers of Android devices, and with focused efforts from many other vendors, such as LG, Huawei and Acer, yielding promising volumes, the platform continues to gather momentum in markets around the world,” asserted Canalys Senior Analyst Pete Cunningham. “Android has been well received by the market and in some geographies it is becoming a sought-after consumer brand. It has rapidly become the platform to watch, and its growing volumes will help to entice developers, ensuring consumers have access to an increasingly rich and vibrant mobile content and application ecosystem. Vendors are now delivering Android devices across a broad range of price points, from high-end products such as the Samsung Galaxy S or HTC Desire, to aggressively priced devices such as the LG GT540 Optimus or the Huawei built Vodafone 845, ensuring that Android devices are available and affordable to consumers on almost any budget.”
Other than the U.S market, Canalys has researched on the emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia and mainland China. In these sectors the smartphone shipments have gone up by 112 percent year-on-year. Nokia is the leading vendor in all these aforementioned countries this quarter. With a 65 percent share of the smartphone market, the company sold 1.1 million units in India. On the other hand, RIM’s business grew in India despite the ongoing negotiations, amounting to an 18 percent share in Q3 2010.
“There has been a lot of speculation about whether Nokia will adopt another platform, but that looks highly unlikely. Its current strategy is clear and makes sense,” elucidates Pete Cunningham. “But Nokia still lacks a truly high-end product to compete against the iPhone and leading Android devices. The market is moving quickly and Nokia urgently needs to deliver an exciting and genuinely differentiated, high-end flagship MeeGo device early next year to regain its reputation as an innovative technology leader, and to retain its leadership position in the market.”
Owing to Nokia’s leadership in markets around the globe, the Symbian Foundation maintained its position of the foremost smartphone OS vendor worldwide. Coming to the world as a whole, the Android platform shows a 1,309 percent year-on-year increasing its sales from 1.4 million in Q3 2009 to over 20.0 million units in this year’s third quarter.
A freshly released operating system seen this quarter was the Windows Phone 7. In Q3 2010, Microsoft’s OS amassed only 3 percent of the worldwide smart phone shipments. However, there are chances of a brighter future in Q4 for the company with several smartphones based on the Windows Phone 7 being released.