New York, Nov. 2: Sports fans have the Super Bowl, World Series and March Madness to drum up excitement and competition. But there’s a nerdy competition that, for some, is just as thrilling and action-packed: the quarterly results of mobile phone market share.
Sure, it might not sound very sexy and people don’t wear fancy uniforms, but with Apple, Google, Nokia and others in a neck-and-neck race to be the king of mobile smartphones, this competition has a lot at stake and as much excitement as the final game of the World Series.
A new report released Monday by Canalys, a company that tracks technology market data, illustrates the rivalry of the big companies and the speed of growth in the worldwide smartphone market.
According to Canalys, in the third quarter of 2010, worldwide smartphone sales grew by 95 percent, compared with the same period last year, with total sales for the quarter reaching 81 million devices shipping.
Google’s Android platform continues its explosive growth, up 1,309 percent from the same time last year when 1.4 million Android-enabled phones were sold, compared with 20 million during this last quarter. Samsung, HTC, Motorola and Sony Ericsson all sell a number of Android mobile phones, which help the platform grow at such a rapid pace.
Apple received a huge pat on the back, too, spurred by sales of the iPhone 4.
The report says Apple has 17 percent of the worldwide market for smartphones, beating out RIM, the maker of the Blackberry product line, which commands 15 percent. Apple also beat RIM in the United States, “seizing a 26 percent share” of the market compared with RIM’s 24 percent.
Nokia, the Finnish cellphone maker, still led over all, with 33 percent of the worldwide market. Its success has been spurred by the company’s global reach and the existing relationship it has with global wireless carriers.
The report also cements the fact that Microsoft has a long way to go to catch up in this market. Mobile phones running on the traditional Microsoft mobile operating system accounted for only 3 percent of smartphones shipped over the last quarter.
This could all change through the next round of sales as the Windows Phone 7 finally hits store shelves this month. At first the Microsoft phone will run only on the AT&T network; it will be available on other carriers in the first quarter of 2011.