Smartphone shipments surged in 2010
Nokia vs Android, Apple vs RIM
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Apple and Android ate into the world smartphone market share of both Nokia and BlackBerry boys Research in Motion during 2010, though since everyone is selling more handsets than ever before, none of them should complain.
The figures come from market watcher Strategy Analytics, and they see 2010 closing with Nokia taking 34.2 per cent of the global smartphone biz, RIM 16.7 per cent, Apple 16.2 per cent and everyone else together 32.9 per cent.
Nokia and RIM saw their shares fall year on year, from 38.8 per cent and 19.7 per cent, respectively. Apple was up, from 14.4 per cent. Likewise, the anonymous Others, from 27.1 per cent.
Crucially, the business as a whole grew, from 2009's smartphone shipments of 174.7m units to 292.9m last year, an increase of just under 68 per cent.
Comparing 2010 with 2009, we see Apple's shipped 89.3 per cent more smartphones in the second year, while Nokia and RIM saw shipments jump more modestly: 47.6 per cent and 41.4 per cent, respectively.
Others did very well, shipping more than double the number of units, yielding growth of 103.9 per cent.
Among the Others are the likes of HTC, Motorola, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, all of which Strategy Analytics name-checked as major Android smartphone players.
Their success is better news for Google than it is for them. Yes, the platform is growing at a huge rate, but that's not - yet, at any rate - propelling any single vendor into the top three.
So Android backers are battling as much with each other as with Nokia, Apple and RIM. ®
