Research firm IDC went out on a limb today with some highly specific predictions for the worldwide smartphone market, releasing projections that show Microsoft’s Windows Phone rising to 9.8 percent market share by 2014, up from 6.8 percent this year. That would put Microsoft hot on the heels of Apple’s iPhone, which the firm sees declining from 14.7 percent to 10.9 percent market share over the same time period.
Whether or not the numbers turn out to be true, or even in the ballpark, they illustrate how much the mobile market remains up for grabs — and how long it could stay that way.
Microsoft, which is preparing to launch its new Windows Phone 7 operating system, might take solace in that fact, even if IDC’s growth prediction for Windows Phone might not be as much as the company would hope.
“No one smartphone OS will dominate mobile phones in the way that Microsoft has with Windows on the personal computer,” write IDC analysts in a news release about the numbers, with IDC analyst Kevin Restivo predicting that the market will “comfortably support up to five OS players over the next five years.”
The firm calls Google’s Android operating system the “wild card,” predicting that its market share will rise to 24.6 percent in 2014, from its current 16.3 percent, putting it in the No. 3 position. BlackBerry would stay at No. 2, around 17 percent, while Symbian is poised to fall from 40 percent to about 33 percent, IDC predicts.
The numbers contain some good news for the mobile market overall in the short run. IDC says it expects mobile phone shipments to total nearly 270 million units this year, a 55.4 percent increase over the same period last year. That’s 10 percentage points more than the firm’s previous forecast for the current year, which IDC attributes to factors including the introduction of new smartphone models.
IDC says it expects smartphone shipments to rise 24.5 percent in 2011, but the firm then sees the growth rate declining in subsequent years, to the point that it’s increasing just 13.6 percent in 2014.
Research firm IDC went out on a limb today with some highly specific predictions for the worldwide smartphone market, releasing projections that show Microsoft’s Windows Phone rising to 9.8 percent market share by 2014, up from 6.8 percent this year. That would put Microsoft hot on the heels of Apple’s iPhone, which the firm sees declining from 14.7 percent to 10.9 percent market share over the same time period.
Whether or not the numbers turn out to be true, or even in the ballpark, they illustrate how much the mobile market remains up for grabs — and how long it could stay that way.
Microsoft, which is preparing to launch its new Windows Phone 7 operating system, might take solace in that fact, even if IDC’s growth prediction for Windows Phone might not be as much as the company would hope.
“No one smartphone OS will dominate mobile phones in the way that Microsoft has with Windows on the personal computer,” write IDC analysts in a news release about the numbers, with IDC analyst Kevin Restivo predicting that the market will “comfortably support up to five OS players over the next five years.”
The firm calls Google’s Android operating system the “wild card,” predicting that its market share will rise to 24.6 percent in 2014, from its current 16.3 percent, putting it in the No. 3 position. BlackBerry would stay at No. 2, around 17 percent, while Symbian is poised to fall from 40 percent to about 33 percent, IDC predicts.
The numbers contain some good news for the mobile market overall in the short run. IDC says it expects mobile phone shipments to total nearly 270 million units this year, a 55.4 percent increase over the same period last year. That’s 10 percentage points more than the firm’s previous forecast for the current year, which IDC attributes to factors including the introduction of new smartphone models.
IDC says it expects smartphone shipments to rise 24.5 percent in 2011, but the firm then sees the growth rate declining in subsequent years, to the point that it’s increasing just 13.6 percent in 2014.
0 comments:
Post a Comment