Smartphone Sales

Wow! While Android's market share is still relatively small (3.9%), they've made great strides in the past year - a whopping 680% increase. iPhone growth is pretty impressive too - going from half of RIM's market share in 2008 (8.2% versus 16.6%) to over 70% in 2009 (only trailing by 5.5%). If each continued their growth rates, the iPhone would surpass RIM/Blackberry next year. That said, I doubt that Apple could sustain that 75% growth rate. Let's consider a more likely scenario. If RIM continues to grow at 20% annually, the iPhone could catch up in two years with 40% growth - still high, but more reasonable than 75%.

Why Worldwide Smartphone Sales Figures Matter to You – jkOnTheRun

Gartner today reported its worldwide smartphone share findings and it’s more of the same for those watching the numbers. For months we’ve seen smartphone stalwart platforms like Symbian and Windows Mobile lose out to the relative upstarts. Research In Motion’s BlackBerry, Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android operating systems all gained ground. Palm’s rejuvenation with webOS also grabbed a little piece of the pie, which should continue as Palm partners with new carriers.

There are two aspects difficult to see from the above graph I built from Gartner’s numbers. It can be confusing to see a higher red value because it looks like a platform has grown. In fact, this case shows the decline of a platform as red indicates 2008 market share, while blue is for 2009 share. The other item is the percentage growth or decline for each platform. Here are the actual market share numbers from Gartner, along with the percentage change over the prior year. These numbers clearly show who’s growing, and by how much, as compared to those whose shares are eroding.