According to a Gartner report released on 11 March 2009, Apple and Samsung have established their presence in the global smartphone market. Both vendors have experienced triple digit percentage growth y-o-y, and clearly they are eyeing at how much more market share they can take away from Nokia and RIM.
Considering that Samsung has released more models than Apple (the one and only model), it will be interesting how much resources will continue to flow into the development of smartphones.
Many in the industry have identified smartphones as the next category where users will interact online from these mobile handsets while experiencing the rich multimedia functions these smartphones have today.
Clearly, Nokia now have a headlight at the rear view mirror, and these headlights from Samsung and Apple are getting nearer and nearer.
Table 1
Worldwide: Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor, 4Q08 (Thousands of Units)
Worldwide: Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor, 4Q08 (Thousands of Units)
|
| ||||
Company | 4Q08 Sales | Market Share 4Q08 (%) | 4Q07 Sales | Market Share 4Q07 (%) | 4Q07-4Q08 Growth (%) |
Nokia | 15,561.7 | 40.8 | 18,703.3 | 50.9 | -16.8 |
Research In Motion | 7,442.6 | 19.5 | 4,024.7 | 10.9 | 84.9 |
Apple | 4,079.4 | 10.7 | 1,928.3 | 5.2 | 111.6 |
HTC | 1,631.7 | 4.3 | 1,361.1 | 3.7 | 19.9 |
Samsung | 1,598.2 | 4.2 | 671.5 | 1.8 | 138.0 |
Others | 7,829.7 | 20.5 | 10,077.3 | 27.4 | -22.3 |
Total | 38,143.3 | 100.0 | 36,766.1 | 100.0 | 3.7 |
Darren
