Apple now owns 25% of the smartphone market
According to the reports of two major market analyst firms, Apple’s share of the burgeoning smartphone marketplace has reached 25 percent of the U.S. market for the first time, primarily at the expense of RIM / Blackberry and Palm.
Market analysts IDC and comScore put out reports in the last week showing that Apple’s iPhone continues to grow stronger in the smartphone wars, primarily at the expense of its major competitors, such as RIM, Palm, and Microsoft. Apple, for the first time, has climbed to a 25 percent market share, gaining 1.3 points, while RIM / Blackberry lost one full point, as did Microsoft, and Palm lost a whopping 2.2 point on a much smaller market share. On an even smaller market share, Android phones gained 2.7 percent, which represents a much smaller number of actual phone sales than Apple gained.
Worldwide, the results are similar, except that the big loser was Nokia, who is currently suing Apple for patent infringement, perhaps trying to make up in court what it has lost in the marketplace, which is significant. Year to year, 2008 to 2009, Nokia showed a net gain of 12 percent in the worldwide marketplace, according to a Fortune story. However, over that same period, RIM increased shipments by 46 percent and Apple increased the number of iPhone shipments by a staggering 82 percent. Clearly, both Apple and RIM are snapping up much larger shares of the rapidly growing smartphone market, while Nokia is not taking the opportunity to gain nearly as much.
Both sets of figures show very clearly a marketplace in which Apple’s iPhone is growing much faster than anyone other handset manufacturer in the field. Apple is catching both Nokia and RIM in the world arena and is gaining on almost everyone, including RIM, in the U.S. market. The Google phone has grown from nothing to approximately five percent share in the U.S. since its introduction, but does not have the proven sales record of either Apple or RIM. Specifically, problems in both marketing and support seem to lower the possible expectations of the Google Nexus One. Moreover, Apple should get yet another boost from the introduction of their 4G phone some time this summer.
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