macnn/electronista

12/17/2007, 11:55am, EST

Monday, December 17th

iPhone trumping Windows Mobile ownership

The iPhone has already overtaken Windows Mobile phones in terms of North American smartphone popularity, a report from Canalys suggests. The iPhone currently occupies 27 percent of the US market; despite not being legally available in Canada or Mexico, this has reportedly been enough to put it in second place in North America overall, slightly ahead of the Windows Mobile platform. The market is dominated by Research in Motion's BlackBerry platform, which controls more than a third of sales.

BlackBerries have become extremely popular with businessmen, due to RIM's dedicated push e-mail network, and a keypad which simplifies the normally difficult process of typing on a cellphone. Microsoft has meanwhile failed to grow Windows Mobile as expected; this may be the reason for iPhone-like updates to the recent Windows Mobile 6.1, and similar ones for a future incarnation of the OS.


Filed under: iPhone, industry
Other story tags: Microsoft, Windows Mobile, cellphones, Symbian

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vasic
How soon?
0
12/17, 12:39pm, EST
RIM may dominate today, but the difference between its "more than one third" of the market share and Apple's 27% is quite attainable. Clearly, RIM's growth is not nearly as fast as iPhone's. My completely arbitrary, non-scientific guess is, iPhone becomes No. 1 in the North America before its first anniversary (end of June 2008).

Anyone out there care to extrapolate current growth numbers for a more plausible estimate?
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simdude
that seems high
0
12/17, 12:58pm, EST
I'm a bit surprised by the 27%. I iPhone is popular, but if RIM has about 33%, for Apple to go from 0 to 27% in 1/2 a year would be amazing. If those numbers are true, I would imagine them being the number 1 smartphone right after the SDK is released.
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testudo
Misleading figures
0
12/17, 1:29pm, EST
Note that these figures aren't for 'ownership' or true user marketshare, but for sales. And as Mac users would tell you, sales don't tell you how many actual users are out there, just how many bought a new product last quarter.
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greenG4
I'm thinking
0
12/17, 1:34pm, EST
this is probably a percent of sales, not marketshare.
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Smurfman
re: misleading figures
0
12/17, 1:50pm, EST
Well, there's a first time for everything... I've never responded to your comments testudo but have found your posts entertaining (always a little truth with a little embellishment and deceptiveness as well). Keep up the good work. You add more life to this forum.

On to my comment... I just wanted to point out that the figures may be misleading when looking at sales vs. actual users, BUT... this is the same for all (not just iPhone). These numbers may be based off sales, but it's sales for all smart phones and that fact, if it continues to rise consistently, will start eating away at the others user base.

Smart phones have shorter life-spans then a laptop or desktop computer (especially Mac). If numbers rise to between 30%-40% market share within the next 2 months, RIM and other smart phone manufactures better have a PIM (Plan In Motion) to combat their eroding user base.

Within 2-3 years, the iPhone could have 50% or more of the smart phone user base... All from a product merely 6 months old. Wow!

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