Smartphone market share, 2008

Gartner released their statistics about worldwide smartphone sales, which contains useful information not only the previous quarter (Q4 2008), but the whole past year. I'd like to share the following two figures with you:

Comments:

• Nokia is still #1, but it's market position is seriously challenged by RIM, Apple and HTC.
• Even Apple is suffering from decreased sales in Q4, but that didn't prevent them from being ranked as the third vendor by sales.

Comments:

• Symbian had lived better days a year ago, but it's still a bit more than 50% of smartphones that runs this operating system.
• RIM and Mac OS X performed exceptionally well even during the tough economical situation.
• Although the share of Windows Mobile shrank a bit, it still maintains its third position. Only blinds can't see that not for long.

Finally, some words on regional sales:

• Dramatic increase (69%) is experienced in sales of smartphone in North-America, which now accounts for 20% of mobile phones in this region. Carriers are agressively pushing data plans that is beneficial for vendors, too, offering vertical mobile solutions from hardware manufacturing to providing developer SDKs to cloud services.
• While overall device sales dropped, Asia/Pacific recorded a 2.3% growth in smartphone sales.
• EMEA region were up by only 2%, Western-Europe sales increased by 9.6%. Samsung drove sales in 2008 with Omnia as its most successful product.

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