Android the big winner from Symbian and RIM's declines

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 16 February 2012 16:01

IT Industry - Market

The latest handset shipment data from Gartner shows Android to have been the biggest winner from plummeting smartphone market shares of RIM and Symbian in Q4 of 2011.

According to Gartner, 76 million Android devices were sold worldwide in Q4 of 2011m, 41 million more than the same period in 2010. They took Android's share of the smartphone market from 30.5 to 50.9 percent.

Apple sold 35.5 million iOS devices, almost 20 million more than a year earlier, taking its share to 23.8 percent. Newcomer Bada from Samsung achieved a 50 percent increase in sales to 3.1 million but in a fast growing market was only able to boost its share by 0.1 percent, to 2.1 percent.

However, it fared better than Microsoft. It and all the others went backwards. Microsoft saw its sales fall from 3.4 to 2.8 million and its market share from 3.4 to 1.9 percent. RIM sold 13.2 million devices. 1.7 million less than a year earlier and its market share dropped from 14.6 to 8.8 percent. Symbian sold 17.5m devices, only half the number of Q4 of 2010 and its share fell from 32.3 to 11.7 percent.

Microsoft and Nokia are banking on their year old alliance the fruits of which are just starting to hit the market to improve their ranking. And Nokia still leads the overall handset market despite its decline in smartphones.

According to Gartner Nokia had 23.4 percent of the overall handset market in Q4.However sales of 111.7 million were about 10 million down and its market share fell from 27.1 percent. Meanwhile number two player Samsung is gaining ground fast, taking its market share from 17.5 to 19.4 percent over the year.

Apple's strength in the smartphone market saw it more than double sales to 35.5 million and take it into third place in the market overall with a 7.4 percent share, well ahead of LG with 4.0 percent.

Total sales for Q4 of 2011 stood at 476.5 million, a 5.4 percent increase from the same period in 2010. "Expectations for 2012 are for the overall market to grow by about seven percent, while smartphone growth is expected to slow to around 39 percent," said Annette Zimmermann, principal research analyst at Gartner.