Smartphones: Android overtakes Symbian, Apple loses market share

Global smartphone market data in Q4 of 2010 according to Canalys.
Source: Canalys While companies such as Apple and Microsoft have already announced their global smartphone sales figures for the fourth quarter of 2010, now the first market research company has released its report. According to Canalys, Android narrowly beat out Symbian to take the top spot, both selling more than 30 million smartphones each. Next in line are Apple and RIM (BlackBerry), each with about 15 million phones sold, followed by Microsoft with just 3.1 million.

The world market in Q4 of 2010 reportedly amounted to 101.2 million smartphones, which represents a growth of 88.6% compared to the 53.7 million phones sold in Q4 of 2009. The Nokia/Symbian and RIM/Blackberry market grew by far less and both vendors lost market share; Microsoft even lost in absolute terms (its total of 3.1 million smartphones sold probably comprises about 2 million phones with Windows Phone 7 and about 1 million with Windows Mobile). Apple grew only slightly slower than the market, and its market share decreased from 16.3% to 16%. Android grew by 615%, but started out with a small share. Canalys reports that almost half of the Android smartphones were made by HTC and Samsung; other vendors reportedly achieving good figures were LG and Acer.

It is also interesting to compare the figures with Canalys' market data for the third quarter of 2010. The total market volume in the third quarter was apparently 80.9 million devices, which means that sales increased by 25% in Q4. 20 million Android devices were sold in the previous quarter, resulting in an increase of more than 50% in Q4. iPhone sales increased from 14.1 to 16.3 million units, which is equivalent to an increase of 15% and a decrease in market share from 17% to 16%.

According to Canalys, just under 300 million smartphones were sold in 2010, which is 80% more than in 2009. Although Android is now the leader in terms of devices sold, proportions in terms of devices in use are still different, with Symbian and RIM probably still in the lead worldwide.

(crve)