Android’s Rising Market Share

February 8, 2011

Smartphones that don’t run on the Android operating system suffered significant worldwide market share losses in the fourth quarter, while devices using the Google software saw explosive growth, research firm IDC Corp., said Monday.

The Android phones won customers from leading North American vendor Research In Motion Ltd., which sells BlackBerry devices on its own operating system, and took a bite out of Nokia Oyj and its Symbian OS. While both RIM and Nokia posted healthy increases in sales and shipments in a booming smartphone market last year, smaller rivals registered astounding gains.

Samsung, which unveiled the Galaxy line of Android-based devices last year, almost tripled its share of the global smartphone market as sales rose more than fivefold.

HTC doubled its portion to 8.5 per cent and more than tripled shipments. Motorola Inc. and Seoul-based LG Electronics Ltd. also rose dramatically on sales of the open-source Android operating system.

“Android continues to gain by leaps and bounds, helping to drive the smartphone market,” said Ramon Llamas, IDC senior research analyst.

“It has become the cornerstone of multiple vendors’ smartphone strategies, and has quickly become a challenger to market leader Symbian.

“Although Symbian has the backing of Nokia, Android has multiple vendors, including HTC, LG Electronics, Motorola, Samsung and a growing list of companies deploying Android on their devices.”

Google Inc., based in Mountain View, California, gives away Android to boost revenue from services such as mobile advertising and expand the market for its search engine. A separate report last week, from research firm Canalys, showed Android became the world’s best-selling operating system for smartphones last quarter.

According to digital revenue tracker Paid Content, Google benefits from the Android phones financially through advertising revenue-sharing deals with the major wireless carriers who support Android phones. It said Google has a revenue sharing deal with handset makers as well.

Meanwhile, Waterloo-based RIM’s global market share fell to 14.5 per cent in the three months ended Dec. 31 from 19.9 per cent a year ago, with 14.6 million units shipped in the fourth quarter. If dropped to third spot in worldwide smartphone sales in the period from second for all of 2010, surpassed by iPhone maker Apple Inc.

Finland’s Nokia remains the world’s top mobile device maker, with 100.3 million units sold in 2010 for annual growth of 48.2 per cent. But Nokia’s market share in the last three months of 2010 dropped to 28 per cent from 38.6 per cent in the 2009 period. Apple held steady at 16.1 per cent in the quarter, while its year over year market share increased to 15.7 per cent from 14.5 per cent.

RIM held onto third spot in the quarter on the strength of growth outside of North America, Framingham, Massachusetts-based IDC said. It stayed on top in a close battle in North America, despite “mounting challenges” from Apple and the lower-cost Android phones.

Nokia, whose Canadian-born chief executive Stephen Elop is planning yet another executive shuffle, continued to struggle in North America, where older devices make up most of its sales. But strong shipments in emerging markets helped it hold onto top position globally in the quarter, followed by Apple, RIM, Samsung Electronics Co. and Taiwan-based HTC Corp.

Fourth-ranked Samsung of Korea grew by an astonishing 438.9 per cent, with 9.7 million units sold in the final 2010 period, IDC said in its quarterly survey of smartphone sales.

Apple’s iPhone saw shipment volume growth from Asia-Pacific and Japan and made inroads into the enterprise market. IDC said more companies added Apple to their approved smartphone list in the quarter and increased their development of corporate applications. The research company added that a pending iPhone 5 may boast a new design and mobile wallet — allowing owners to make mobile credit card purchases.

RIM, reportedly developing technology that would allow most of the open-source Android applications to be played on a BlackBerry tablet or phone, posted nearly identical year-over-year growth for both the quarter and the year. Driving the expansion was stronger interest from outside North America, with several markets posting double-digit gains. Popular devices for the quarter included the BlackBerry Torch and the Curve 3G.

IDC said the industry shipped 100.9 million smartphones during the fourth quarter worldwide, an 87.2 per cent jump from a year earlier. For the year, shipments totalled 302.6 million worldwide, up 74.4 per cent from 2009.

For 2011, IDC said it expects vendors to offer more mid-range and low-end smartphones at lower prices to reach the mass market.

Nokia

28.3 million units sold

28 per cent market share

36.1 per cent annual growth

Apple

16.2 million units sold

16.1 per cent market share

86.2 per cent annual growth

Research In Motion

14.6 million units sold

14.5 per cent market share