Gartner sees Android at 49% smartphone share by 2015
updated 07:45 am EDT, Thu April 7, 2011
Gartner sees Android getting 49pc share by 2015
Gartner on Thursday chipped in a long-term prediction of its own for smartphone share that gave Android nearly half of the market. It expected Google to jump to 38.5 percent of the market this year to reach 48.8 percent in 2015, or 539.3 million phones. The company would be riding the back of an open OS wave where the devices were "democratized" and would cost $300 or less off-contract, principal analyst Roberta Cozza said.
Unusually, its definition of an open OS included any one where a developer could write a native app, rather than posting source code or allowing any hardware manufacturer to use it. The figure as a result included closed-source platforms like BlackBerry and iOS.
The study contrasted sharply with ABI's data and saw the iPhone gradually losing share. It would spike up to 19.4 percent share this year by adding carriers before gradually sinking to 17.2 percent in 2015. Gartner presumed that Apple would be more interested in keeping its profit margins and would be willing to sacrifice some market share to make that happen.
Microsoft might have the most to gain, but at a cost, the analysts said. Windows Phone would help it leap from 5.6 percent share this year to 19.5 percent in 2015, but much of that would come at the expense of Symbian through the deal with Nokia. Symbian would collapse from 19.2 percent to just a tenth of a point four years from now.
RIM would stand to lose the most. Along with dropping to 13.4 percent share in 2011, its switch to the PlayBook's QNX-based OS for BlackBerry 7 wouldn't be enough to stop a gradual decline to 11.1 percent share, even as its phone shipments went up.
Gartner added that it saw the rise of tablets being "more as a driver than an inhibitor" for devices since users often wanted to buy the same OS for their tablet as on their phone. The claim, however, would at least temporarily favor Apple. It may have shipped 2.4 million iPad 2s just in March where Motorola, the only OEM with a shipping Android 3.0 device, may have moved just 100,000 Xooms in a roughly comparable period.
TAGS :
iPhone, industry, Microsoft, Google, Symbian, Nokia, Android, BlackBerry, Motorola, RIM, mobile phones, Apple, Windows Phone, iPad, QNX, PlayBook, Xoom
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Market Share vs. Making Money
I know I'll be accused of being an Apple Fanboy... whatever. I happen to think Android phones are finally to the point that I would consider the platform to be a viable choice. The phones they're coming out with are getting nicer by the day, however...
Is it me or is the smart phone market looking a lot like the PC market? Apple releases higher build quality devices that are more stable and "just work" like Macs and Android manufactures are building low cost (race to the bottom) low profit margin devices just to compete and expand market share. .. $300 PC's anyone??
From reviews I've read the build quality of these phones vary widely from manufacturer to manufacturer... I just know I've dropped my iphone more times than I can count. yes with a decent case but it just keeps on ticking.
And we have the same arguments... iphones are more expensive and IOS is a closed-system etc....
Yes, Android will have a higher market share.. they are cheaper, and available on more carriers. Thats fine, but in the end they will never be as good as an iphone- only a poor imitation like Windows on PC's have always been.
Even if you hate Apple.. imagine where the smartphone market would be without the iphone. It would be stagnate and blackberries would still be the smartest smart phone around..cringe.