Charts: Worldwide Smartphone Market Share and Trends
Key Facts about the Mobile Environment
- Android (GOOG) and iOS (AAPL) powered 85% of all smartphones shipped in the second quarter of 2012 (2Q12)
- BlackBerry (RIMM) and Symbian (NOK), two pioneers and former leaders of the smartphone market, both saw their market shares fall below five percent. Although Blackberry’s market share has fallen drastically, they have been focusing on developer relations, increasing their app inventory, and streamlining their Blackberry 10 operating system
Android
- Success in the market can be traced directly to Samsung
- Samsung devices accounted for 44 percent of all Android smartphones shipped in the 2nd Quarter of 2012
- Samsung totalled more than the next 7 Android vendors combined
- Many other Android vendors are re-establishing
Apple
- Posted double-digit growth
- Demand for Apple’s flagship smartphone has cooled off now that the device has been available since October
- iOS remained the solid number two operating system behind Android worldwide
BlackBerry
- One of the pioneers and former leaders in the worldwide smartphone market
- Currently revamping their operating system and transitioning to Blackberry 10
- Seamless app porting from the Android system to Blackberry 10 could allow them to obtain app inventory very quickly and retake market share
Symbian
- For years the world’s most shipped OS
- 62.9% drop registered was its sharpest year-over-year drop ever
- Due to Symbian decline, Nokia decided to make Windows their primary mobile operating system
Windows
- Narrowed the gap between itself and BlackBerry
- Share gains it made last quarter are due mostly to Nokia, which almost doubled its Lumia/Windows Phone shipments sequentially
- Windows Phone is still a distant competitor to Android and iOS
- Microsoft will need to generate additional momentum from Windows Phone 8 devices, which will be introduced October 26th, 2012
Linux
- A category largely comprised of Samsung’s Bada shipments
- Declined on a year-over year basis as Samsung’s smartphone sales are increasingly Android centric
- Linux OS dependent vendors such as Panasonic are also migrating to Android, which contributed to the year-over-year decline.
Source: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23638712
Charts Relating to the US market:
Source: ComScore
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This is an Exciting Time in the Mobile World
Following the early-summer release of the Samsung Galaxy S III, here are quick glimpses of the much-hyped-about iPhone 5, Microsoft Surface, and Windows 8.
Video of a leaked iPhone 5 model.
Source: Business Insider
Microsoft:
- iPhone 5: September 21, 2012 (unconfirmed, source: Business Insider)
- Microsoft Surface & Windows 8: October 26, 2012 (confirmed, source: Android Authority)
- Update: Samsung is now planning to launch the next Galaxy Note on August 29th (confirmed, source: Mashable)
- Update: Nokia will announce its Windows 8 smartphone on September 5th (confirmed, source: Business Insider)
Stats: Increase in Smartphone Adoption
Americans are readily switching from feature phones to smartphones. Here are some quick stats:
- As of April 2012: ~110 million Americans have a smartphone, a 44% increase from 2011
- In April 2012, 47.5% switched from feature phones to smartphones, increase from 38% in April 2011
- Old feature phone upgrades decreased 9.9% vs increase in smartphone ownership of 9.5%
- ~61.5% of first-time smartphone owners chose Android phones vs 25.2% who chose iPhones vs 7.1% Windows Phone 7 vs 4.8% Blackberrys
- For those upgrading their smartphones to new devices, 9.6% chose Blackberrys, 3.0% Microsoft phones
“Within the year, we expect to see smartphone owners become the mobile majority, a milestone that represents not only the evolution of the mobile landscape but highlights the enormous potential for marketers as these powerful, ubiquitous devices open new opportunities to reach a growing audience of consumers.”
– Mark Donovan, Senior Vice President of Mobile, comScore
Check out the many great types of native smartphone apps anticipated for 2012. Smartphones are also great for travelling, shopping, retail mobile apps and mCommerce, social media purposes, and mHealth for doctor-to-doctor and doctor-to-patient apps.
Reference
King, R. (2012, July 25). Smartphones now more attainable, desirable for Americans: comScore. Retrieved from http://www.zdnet.com/smartphones-now-more-attainable-desirable-for-americans-comscore-7000001590/
Types of Apps to Anticipate for 2012
Our previous post about the benefits of native apps clearly outlines the ways in which they can be better than web-based apps. Here are some types of apps to anticipate for 2012, made possible through native-app attributes.
- Mobile Social Networking
According to Peters (2012), the attraction on social networking lies in allowing people to share information in real-time, whether it be their interests, the restaurant at which they are currently enjoying dinner, or photos of their surroundings, the people they are conversing with, the drink they’re recommending. Built-in smartphone features such as cameras and GPS streamlines this sharing process. (Stats for mobile usage for social networking)“It’s all about context, frictionless sharing and push-notification-driven user interfaces. The best apps won’t tell you about every random person or restaurant that you walk by; just the ones that will trulymatter.”
-— Brett Martin, Co-founder and CEO, Sonar - Location-Based Services
Location information provided through a smartphone’s built in GPS allows native apps to cater information and advertisements to a user’s location (restaurants, libraries, other users, etc).“We are really starting to see location-based services ‘come of age’. People are realising that sharing their location often offers some kind of reward in terms of a discount or deal. It is the combination of time and context – directing people towards a deal when they can easily redeem it – that unlocks a powerful tool for marketers to develop precise targeting approaches”
– James Fergusson, Global Director, TNS - Context-Aware Service
Related to location-based services are context-aware services. These services take into account a user’s smartphone history use, interests, activities, schedule, preferences, amongst other things, to provide the user with information and advertisements customized to be relevant to them. - Object-Recognition
Object-Recognition technology is becoming more and more developed. It relies on a smartphone’s built-in camera and other sensors to recognize various items in a user’s surroundings, and then to provide to the user information related to the object. Imagine using your smartphone’s camera to view the CN Tower, and getting information about its hours of operation, admission fees, and whether anyone in your contacts list is currently in the tower! - Mobile Instant Messaging
Mobile instant messaging services such as Trillian, BBM, and Google Talk allows users to talk to their friends from what used to be just desktop messaging services. Johnson (2011) predicts that mobile instant messaging usage will triple by 2016, but will never replace SMS.“SMS is less socially intruding because users don’t feel the need to respond the messages instantly. [...] On the other hand, desktop-based apps have a sense of urgency and timeliness to them that makes users feel like they have to keep responding – similar to an actual conversation.
– Daniel Ashdown, Research Analyst, Juniper ResearchInstead, it is predicted that smartphone users will use both SMS and mobile instant messaging to fulfil their needs (Johnson, 2011).
- Mobile Commerce
Mobile commerce thus far is, in its most basic sense, an extension of eCommerce. However, mCommerce is expected to have unique mobile features such as checking in to a store (allowing retailers to know you are present), and adding products to a shopping cart by using object-recognition or bar code scanning technology. Here are interesting infographics on retail mobile apps usage,mCommerce strategies, and mCommerce stats for the United States. - Mobile Payment
Near Field Communication payment systems is not predicted to be widely used until 2015. Before that can happen, however, payment solution providers (Interac, PayPal, etc) will have to address issues such as ease-of-use and implementation while maintaining a high level of security, as well as service coverage and user awareness.
References
- Johnson, L. (2011, June 22). Mobile instant messaging usage expected to triple by 2016: Study. Retrieved from http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/research/10266.html
- Peters, M. (2012, May 5). Why the future of social is in the palm of your hand. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2012/05/05/future-social-mobile/
- Pettey, C., and Gousduff, L. (2011, February 10). Gartner identifies 10 consumer mobile applications to watch in 2012. Retrieved from http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1544815
- Russell, J. (2012, April 24). Location-based services have huge untapped potential worldwide. Retrieved from http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/04/24/report-location-based-mobile-services-have-huge-untapped-potential-worldwide/
- Shroeder, S. (2009, July 10). The future of the iPhone: Intelligent object recognition. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2009/07/10/iphone-object-recognition/
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Android OS Claims Majority
In yesterday’s blog post we spoke about the large market share of Android, and some important development considerations. According to a recent report by comScore Android OS has achieved a market share over 50% in America. 51.8% of American smart phone users use Android, 34.3% iOS, 8.1% Blackberry, and 4.3% use Windows Phones. Due to the multiple players on the Android OS, Apple is still dominating in market share.
The Android market is divided between Samsung (with 17% of the American smart phone market), HTC (14%) and Motorola (at 11%), and other producers( at 9%). With the Galaxy S3 launching soon and the iPhone5 in the pipeline it will be interesting to see how the market share of the top two players change. We at FloatPoint predict Samsung to gain share when the S3 launches, and Apple to claim it back when iPhone 5 launches; restoring the current balance.
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