Mobile phone market going through massive shift, says Gartner

According to Gartner research Nokia saw its market share for smartphones drop to 40.8% in the fourth quarter, compared to 50.9% in the fourth quarter of 2007.  That's a whopping 10 percentage points in one year.

During the same period RIM and Apple increased their combined market share from 16.1% to 30.2%.

The success of phones made in Ontario and Cupertino answers early criticism and signals a fundamental shift in consumer tastes. Both North American phone makers got it right while the long dominant European maker misread the signs.  While no one can write-off the world's largest phone maker, there are plenty of examples of other consumer electronics companies that missed a product rev cycle and lost the lead for good. 

Looking forward, will it continue to be about the device or what you can do on it?  As mobile device technology converges around a common iPhone-like form-factor, what will separate the winners from the losers?

The iPhone SDK that spawned 10,000 apps on the Apple store seems to suggest that consumers are hungry for more things to do on their smartphone. And Nokia has taken note, morphing its mobile cloud computing platform, Ovi, into a store.

From my vantage point it seems like the mobile race will increasingly become - if it hasn't already - not about technology, but brand and user experience.  2009 is certianly looking like a watershed year in more ways than one,  altering landscapes across the globe.

Comments

[max]

what did this blog do beside stating a fact? how about some deep insights instead of asking questions?

Max

[Anshu Agarwal]

Max - I think this data is significant to highlight by itself. But it’s one year-over-year period so making very many insights is a stretch.

The link I made in the post was between the market share data and something I recently read about the Ovi platform also becoming a store. This announcement presaged the market share #s Gartner reported. It was a a-ha for me on why device manufacturers are making the investment.

The mobile market has very much been about devices. And smart devices are a relatively recent phenomena in the U.S. consumer market (while U.S. business users have had options for a longer period of time they have used only a small fraction of smart phone capabilities, primarily email). But I think the coalescing smart phone form-factor may shift the focus in short succession away from devices toward available downloads and portals or stores that carry them.

If you’ve been a small independent trying to break-through on the carrier deck without much luck new avenues are opening up. Now, how good will the end user experience be and what about app performance? Well, that’s our business and something we can help with.