Is The Smartphone Market Shrinking?
When the going gets tough, the tough get going
. And in the world of smartphones, there has been a whole lot of going recently.
Apple has named the iPhone 4, which debuted June 24, 2010, the "most successful product launch ever" in Apple history. Google's newcomer, Android, an open-source operating system, has firmly ingrained itself in the smartphone operating system arena.
Admob claims that the two platforms, iOS and Android, make up a full half of its mobile advertising traffic. One in five smartphones sold in the UK use Android. In the U.S., Android continues to balloon, claiming over 13.0% in May 2010.
But Apple and Google, however many headlines they take up, are not the only platforms vying for the smartphone OS lead. In fact, they aren't leading.
The leader is Research in Motion [RIM], the manufacturer of the wildly popular Blackberry smartphone. From December 2009 through February 2010, RIM grew from 40.8% U.S. market share to 42.1%, while Android jumped from 3.9% to 9.0%. Apple, however, slid from 25.5% to 25.4%.
But while Jobs, Larry Page, Sergei Brin and Mike Lazaridis congratulate each other, the respective leaders of their competition haphazardly seek solutions for their declining market shares, lowered brand equity and loss of profit.
Technology giant, HP, acquired the ailing Palm brand and is determined to market the Pre and Pixi, among other Palm models, to the worldwide HP clientele. They face a challenge, however. In May 2010, Palm claimed a meager 4.8% of smartphone users, a 0.6% decline from three months earlier. In a press release, HP states that Palm's reliable reputation and HP's marketing acumen will propel Palm back to the top - which happens to be a long, long ways off.
Nokia, a former powerhouse in international smartphone market share, struggles to retain its 41% international market share as it renounces the Symbian platform to transition to the new MeeGo platform. The Symbian platform, used by Nokia and Sony, among others, controlled 81% of the market in 2009. MeeGo has a big shoes to fill. Meanwhile, Nokia's newly released N8 smartphone, while "peppy" and "decent," is no stunner.
Microsoft chops off its feet before it loses its head by killing the Kin One and Kin Two smartphone handsets. The Kin did not sell well, and many speculated it was causing internal competition with Microsoft's newly-introduced Windows Phone 7 platform.
And so the tough leave.
While smartphones still possess a technophobic allure, they are being surely integrated into the mainstream lifestyle. Millions across the world own smartphones. That's a lot of fish to catch - but the number of fishermen keeps decreasing. New bait, anyone?
by: Peter Simpson
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