The Informa research company has predicted that smart phones using Google's Android (Linux-based) software will overtake Apple iPhone sales by 2012, according to reports. One reason will be familiar to anyone who knows the history of the computer industry. Android phones will probably be available on hundreds of handsets from dozens of manufacturers on most or all of the world's mobile phone networks, whereas iPhones will probably be available from one manufacturer, and possibly on only one network in each country.
It's this kind of widespread availability at a variety of prices on a range of networks that has so far kept sales of smart phones based on Microsoft Windows Mobile ahead of iPhone sales, though you'd never believe it from the press coverage. (And, I might add, it's going to change very soon.)
Gartner released some smart phone market figures this week. The company puts Symbian-based phones well ahead in 08Q4, selling 17.9m handsets for a market share of 47.1%. It's followed by Research In Motion (7.4m, 19.5%), Microsoft Windows Mobile (4.7m, 12.4%), Apple OS X (4.1m, 10.7%) and Linux (3.2m, 8.4%).
"Gartner estimated that Android smartphones accounted for 20% of total Linux sales in the fourth quarter of 2008." It's a start....
The basic story is that, compared with the same quarter in 2007, Nokia is losing market share (-21.6%), while Apple (111.6% growth) and RIM (84.9%) are catching up fast.
Over the full year, Gartner reckons Nokia sold 61m smart phones, followed by RIM (23m), Apple (11m), HTC, (6m) and Sharp (5m). Total sales of smart phones came to 139.3m, out of total mobile phone sales of 1.22 billion. On this basis, the iPhone managed to take just 0.9% of the mobile phone market, though no doubt a much higher percentage of the profits.
Gartner says that 08Q4 was the lowest growth rate for the smart phone market, at 3.7%, compared with 13.9% growth for the full year. However, any growth could be considered good in tough times, and there is clearly a move towards smart phones as they become more capable and more versatile. It should therefore be reasonably safe to predict further growth for Apple iPhone and RIM sales in particular.
But the smart phone market is not easy to call. Unlike the PC market, there is very little to keep people using one operating system. Users can easily switch from Symbian to Android, or vice versa, and they may not even notice.
Another major factor is the appeal of particular handsets. If everyone wants a RAZR, Motorola's sales boom, and if no one wants a RAZR, it's a bust. And as the success of the iPhone has shown, the desirability of the handset can overcome limitations in both the software and the network.
And one thing we don't know is which companies will have really attractive handsets in another five or 10 years. It might be Apple, Nokia, HTC, Palm, or a company we've not heard of, which might not even exist yet. Not many, if any, pundits were predicting in 1998 that Apple would be king of mobile phone handsets a decade later -- or even that it would enter the market for portable MP3 players.
I shall therefore avoid predicting Android's ultimate victory until after it's happened.
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It's this kind of widespread availability at a variety of prices on a range of networks that has so far kept sales of smart phones based on Microsoft Windows Mobile ahead of iPhone sales, though you'd never believe it from the press coverage. (And, I might add, it's going to change very soon.)
Gartner released some smart phone market figures this week. The company puts Symbian-based phones well ahead in 08Q4, selling 17.9m handsets for a market share of 47.1%. It's followed by Research In Motion (7.4m, 19.5%), Microsoft Windows Mobile (4.7m, 12.4%), Apple OS X (4.1m, 10.7%) and Linux (3.2m, 8.4%).
"Gartner estimated that Android smartphones accounted for 20% of total Linux sales in the fourth quarter of 2008." It's a start....
The basic story is that, compared with the same quarter in 2007, Nokia is losing market share (-21.6%), while Apple (111.6% growth) and RIM (84.9%) are catching up fast.
Over the full year, Gartner reckons Nokia sold 61m smart phones, followed by RIM (23m), Apple (11m), HTC, (6m) and Sharp (5m). Total sales of smart phones came to 139.3m, out of total mobile phone sales of 1.22 billion. On this basis, the iPhone managed to take just 0.9% of the mobile phone market, though no doubt a much higher percentage of the profits.
Gartner says that 08Q4 was the lowest growth rate for the smart phone market, at 3.7%, compared with 13.9% growth for the full year. However, any growth could be considered good in tough times, and there is clearly a move towards smart phones as they become more capable and more versatile. It should therefore be reasonably safe to predict further growth for Apple iPhone and RIM sales in particular.
But the smart phone market is not easy to call. Unlike the PC market, there is very little to keep people using one operating system. Users can easily switch from Symbian to Android, or vice versa, and they may not even notice.
Another major factor is the appeal of particular handsets. If everyone wants a RAZR, Motorola's sales boom, and if no one wants a RAZR, it's a bust. And as the success of the iPhone has shown, the desirability of the handset can overcome limitations in both the software and the network.
And one thing we don't know is which companies will have really attractive handsets in another five or 10 years. It might be Apple, Nokia, HTC, Palm, or a company we've not heard of, which might not even exist yet. Not many, if any, pundits were predicting in 1998 that Apple would be king of mobile phone handsets a decade later -- or even that it would enter the market for portable MP3 players.
I shall therefore avoid predicting Android's ultimate victory until after it's happened.
