Compete.com’s December US Mobile Subscriber Market Share report has been released. Of particular interest to me is the shifting sands of the Smartphone Platform Market Share. The numbers reflect the December release of the Droid by Verizon (and their heavy advertising) but not the release of the Nexus to T-Mobile which occurred in January.
I have made the point before, and this chart strongly reinforces it, that initially Android is going to take share from RIM, Palm and Microsoft and not so much from Apple. Clearly, RIM has a lot to loose in this battle although Palm perhaps has even more to loose in that their survival is at stake. Apple will soon respond with a new phone and other tactics to increase market share.
Because this is as much a battle of providers as it is phones it seems likely that Apple & Android will continue to be favored alternatives at ATT & Verizon leaving little breathing room for the current alternatives to gain or even retain market share. The Compete.com numbers:
Smartphone Platform Market Share
RIM was the leading mobile smartphone operating system in the U.S. in December 2009 with 41.6 percent share of U.S. smartphone devices. Apple ranked second with 25.3 percent share (up 1.2 percentage points), followed by Microsoft with 18.0 percent share, Palm with 6.1 percent share, and Google with 5.2 percent share (up 2.7 percentage points).
| Top Smartphone Platforms 3 Months Ending Dec. 2009 vs. 3 Months Ending Sep. 2009 Total U.S. Age 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens |
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| Share (%) of Smartphone Devices | |||
| Sep-09 | Dec-09 | Point Change | |
| Total Smartphone Subscribers | 100.0% | 100.0% | N/A |
| RIM | 42.6% | 41.6% | -1.0 |
| Apple | 24.1% | 25.3% | 1.2 |
| Microsoft | 19.0% | 18.0% | -1.0 |
| Palm | 8.3% | 6.1% | -2.2 |
| 2.5% | 5.2% | 2.7 | |
[...] Will Google actually take market share away from the leaders Twitter & Facebook? Android phones are already digging into the market share of RIM (Blackberry) & Palm (Pre) See this post [...]
Pingback by Buzzing About Google Buzz « Google Search, Social Networking, & Mobile Phones — February 10, 2010 @ 10:22 pm
Im really surprised that Apple does have a majority of the market share for smart phones. The iphone has been the leader in smart phone technology and aesthetics. Apple needs to produce the next generation iphone if they want to stay ahead of the game
Comment by sean jensen (1 comments) — February 16, 2010 @ 4:03 pm
I think they have the majority by far of web usage…but RIM has been providing email and has such a huge installed base it will take a while to catch them
Comment by Mike (2500 comments) — February 16, 2010 @ 4:10 pm
Hi Mike,
This is all good & interesting, HOWEVER, for me it is much more interesting to understand how all that is effecting the searches, results, Organics, PPC, Local, etc.. ???
Comment by PureSheer (134 comments) — February 20, 2010 @ 2:15 pm
[...] Smartphone Market Share – December 2009 (blumenthals.com) [...]
Pingback by Android doing very well – has more than 7% of the US smartphone market « An Indian Techie — March 10, 2010 @ 4:16 pm