No less than 54.5 million smartphones were shipped in the fourth quarter of 2009, up 39% year-over-year.
A new report by IDC reveals that the worldwide smartphone market is growing like never before, as 54.5 million smartphones were shipped in Q4 2009. That's a 39% increase year-over-year. For the full year, manufacturers shipped a total of 174.2 million units in 2009, up 15.1% from the 151.4 million units in 2008. According to IDC, smartphones accounted for 15.4% of all cell phones shipped in 2009, up slightly from 12.7% in 2008.
According to IDC, the top five smartphone manufacturers are Nokia, RIM, Apple, Motorola and HTC. When we picked our top 5 brands late last year, we put Nokia, RIM and Apple in the top 3 spots. According to IDC's report, the three companies held close to 75% of the smartphone market in Q4 2009.
More specifically, Nokia had a 38.2% market share, followed by RIM (19.6%), Apple (16%), Motorola (4.6%), HTC (4.4%) and Others (17.2%). Now, these market share numbers are based on shipping numbers to store shelves and should not be confused with actual sales numbers, yet it's pretty obvious that Motorola's new Android effort will only escalate in 2010.
It'll especially be interesting to see what will happen in the U.S. smartphone market in 2010. Apple has promised to release a more competitive iPhone OS 4.0 in 2010, while HTC is planning to release a slew of next-generation Windows Mobile smartphones. All this while Google is building up a new sales channel for Android smartphones, with hints of corporate users soon being a target as well.
Will Research In Motion be able to maintain its position as a leading solutions provider to the corporate masses, or will improvements in competing camps and especially new competition on Verizon Wireless' network lead to significant changes in the U.S. market in 2010? Only time will tell, but leaks coming out of RIM certainly suggests that the company aims to defend its position by introducing new form factors as well as new software soon.
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