- Android Gains, Nokia & RIM Dip, Apple Stands Resolute
It’s been a big week for mobile research with worldwide and US-specific stats coming out of the woodwork. The big news of the day has been Android and its expected dominance on a global scale. Despite gains for many of the major players in terms of units shipped, Google’s operating system is wrestling away market share and limelight from those who previously controlled what the market looked at.
While all the world’s a stage, the US is garnering attention because of the dead heat of three platforms going on in the country. Innovation for apps is key to the market, so it’ll be very telling when one of these systems emerges as a victor. Thanks to the iPhone soon moving to more networks than just AT&T, carrier choice will begin playing less of a role in terms of smartphone choice by consumers and investment from developers.
Android Goes for Global Gold
Research firm Canalys has reported that Android has overtaken long-reigning leader Nokia’s Symbian as the top smartphone platform globally in the fourth quarter of 2010.
Manufacturers sold 33.3 million Android devices in Q4 — up sevenfold from Q4 2009 — beating out Symbian’s 31 million sales. Android accounts for 32.9% of smartphones shipped while Nokia only accounted for 30.6% — this is a dramatic fall from its 44.4% market share a year ago. Android saw a 615% growth year-over-year, compared to Nokia’s 30% growth.
The Finnish company still led as the largest hardware maker with 28% of the market, but it can no longer assume it has the most popular software.
Android’s success appears to come largely from the sheer number of manufacturers developing Android devices, flooding the market not only with a wide range of functionality but also a wide range of pricing and specialization. While many makers were completely new to Android, others have been involved significantly since 2009. Acer, HTC, LG and Samsung saw gains in Android device sales ranging from 371% (HTC) to 4,127% (LG).
Motorola and Sony Ericsson are considered to have secured their places and saved themselves from large losses by dropping other platforms, like Windows Phone 7/Mobile and Symbian, in favor of Android and supporting high-end devices.
For other companies:
- Despite almost doubling its shipments compared to Q4 2009, Apple’s market share dipped slightly to 16%.
- Verizon’s iPhone launch means that the carrier will no longer devote all its attention to Android and this could cause a shift in the US market and marketing. Google may have to look at AT&T to make up for this loss of focus.
- BlackBerry OS dropped from 20% to 14.4%.
- RIM secured the top spot in the US for device shipments by individual phone designers.
- Microsoft, despite Windows Phone 7’s launch, dropped to 3.1%.
- Nokia N8 sales reportedly reached around 4 million units in the fourth quarter.
- Nokia is still the largest cellphone manufacturer for all types, but its loss of the top spot to Android is the end of an era for Symbian.
In general, Smartphone sales continue to rise at a lightning quick pace. In the fourth quarter there were 101 million smartphone units shipped out, an 89% growth compared to Q4 2009.
The Top 5 Shifts
While Apple remains one of the top five mobile phone vendors globally, it has conceded the number 4 spot so China’s ZTE, according to the latest report from IDC.
The report said that, despite a record quarter for phone shipments, Apple dipped into fifth place. Apple shipped 16.2 million units, an increase of 2.1 million units from the prior quarter — up significantly from Q4 2009’s 8.7 million units.
Reaching the top five for the very first time, ZTE shipped 16.8 million units for the quarter, reaching 4.2% of the market. Lately ZTE has strengthened its smartphone portfolio, launching the Android Blade and Racer phones.
IDC did note that despite ZTE’s surge, it could lose its fourth place spot or even drop out of the top five as each quarter can be affected by big announcements or smartphone shifts.
“Change-up among the number four and five vendors could be a regular occurrence this year,” said Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC’s mobile devices technology and trends team. “Motorola, Research In Motion, and Sony Ericsson — all vendors with a tight focus on the fast-growing smartphone market who had ranked among the top five worldwide vendors during 2010 — are well within striking distance to move back into the top five list.”
The report also said:
- Overall, the global mobile phone market rose 17.9% compared to the end of 2009, shipping 401.4 million units versus the year-ago quarter’s 340.5 million units.
- 2010 saw a total of 1.39 billion units shipped, an 18.5% increase over 2009’s 1.17 billion.
“Feature phone users looking to do more with their devices will flock to smartphones in the years to come,” said Kevin Restivo, a senior IDC research analyst.
With Tablets, Smartphones Android to Beat iOS for Mobile Data Traffic
When it comes to mobile data consumption, the iPhone’s crown may be getting too heavy.
This year, Android is expected to surpass iOS’ share thanks to new tablets and smartphones reaching the market in the coming months.
According to a Cisco forecast for 2010 to 2015, the iPhone’s data levels were four times greater than any other smartphone at the beginning of 2010. However, by the end of 2010 this data consumption was only 1.75 times greater than that of Android smartphones.
Android is projected to overtake iOS consumption as tablets become more popular. Cisco said that tablets generate five times more traffic than smartphones and it believes that Google’s OS will dominate the tablet market.
“In 2010, 3 million tablets were connected to the mobile network [and] mobile data traffic per tablet was 405MB per month, compared to 79MB per month per smartphone,” said Cisco.
Cisco forecasts that the data consumed by tablets alone in 2015 will reach 248 petabytes per month — the entire global mobile network traffic per month in 2010 was only 242 petabytes.
US Is a Tight Race
The smartphone race is in full swing and it’s a virtual three-way tie for the lead in US market share among Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android and RIM’s BlackBerry OS. Android has been picking up steam while Apple has kept stable and RIM declined, giving each roughly a 28% share of the market as of December, according to new data from Nielsen.
These numbers cover all smartphone owners. If looking back to new purchases within the last six months, Android’s momentum is undeniable. Devices with Google’s mobile operating system account for 43% of recent purchases, beating out Apple’s 26% and RIM’s 20%.
According to Nielsen, roughly 31% of mobile users in the US own a smartphone. Breaking it down by ethnicity in the US, Nielsen found for mobile users:
- 45% of Hispanics and Asian/Pacific Islanders use smartphones.
- 56% of Hispanics and 60% of Asian/Pacific Islanders that purchased a phone in the last six months bought a smart phone. The iPhone is the top device among these groups.
- 33% of African Americans use smartphones.
- 44% of African Americans that purchased a phone in the last six months bought a smartphone. RIM devices were king among this group.
- 27% of whites use smartphones.
- 42% of whites that purchased a phone in the last six months bought a smartphone. Apple’s iPhone also reigned with this group.
Nielsen previously predicted smartphone penetration will surpass 50% of mobile users by the end of 2011, but may end up revising this number. At the end of 2010, smartphone penetration was at 31% of mobile users, compared to 20% at the end of 2009.
The Online Reporter Editor’s note: The Canalys report numbers included a footnote saying that numbers counted for Google’s operating system “relate to Android, as well as the OMS and Tapas platform variants.” There is some concern over this issue as OMS generally considered the basis of China Mobile’s OPhone platform and Tapas is modified to support Chinese services that are not connected with Google or its platform. Both were originally constructed as variants of Android, but have evolved. OMS is generally considered to be more sympathetic to Windows systems, is incompatible with many features of and apps for Android, and China Mobile has its own SDK for OMS with at least 500 apps. While its roots are in Android, Tapas was developed as an Android competitor by the former president of Google China and has announced deals with Sharp, Haier and Tianyu to license Tapas OS for phones aimed at China.
Global Smartphone Market | |||||
Q4 2010 Shipments (millions) | % Share | Q4 2009 Shipments (millions) | % Share | Growth | |
Total | 101.2 | 100% | 53.7 | 100% | 88.6% |
Google | 33.3 | 32.9% | 4.7 | 8.7% | 615.1% |
Nokia | 31 | 30.6% | 23.9 | 44.4% | 30% |
Apple | 16.2 | 16% | 8.7 | 16.3% | 85.9% |
RIM | 14.6 | 14.4% | 10.7 | 20% | 36% |
Microsoft | 3.1 | 3.1% | 3.9 | 7.3% | -20.3% |
Others | 3 | 2.9% | 1.8 | 3.4% | 64.8% |
Source: Canalys | |||||
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