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Android smartphones are snipping at Nokia’s heels
ACCORDING TO RESEARCH by the spreadsheet wizards at Canalys, Nokia retains its lead on the smartphone market, despite Android-based handsets shooting off the shelves like they have rockets in their micro-USB drives.
Canalys said that while Nokia sits wheezing atop its pedestal with 38 per cent market share, and RIM sits at its knee with 18 per cent while Apple sits on RIM's shoulder with 13 per cent, the Android masses are gathering, and could push this unholy trinity from their lofty positions.
"The latest release of our detailed and complete country-level smart phone shipment data for Q2 2010 clearly reveals the impressive momentum Android is gaining in markets around the world," said Canalys VP, principal analyst and expert at stating the bleedin' obvious, Chris Jones.
So, while Nokia and those other incumbent mobile phone vendors increased their shipments in the quarter, their numbers pale in comparison next to the sales of Android devices which, possibly unfairly, get lumped together.
Nokia, we learn, grew its shipments by about 40 per cent, and Apple - which released its signal-hating Iphone 4 during the quarter - grew its sales by about 60 per cent. Meanwhile, Android shipments increased by 886 per cent. Of course, this number is made up of shipments by a number of firms. However, that takes nothing away from the apparent popularity of the OS and the smartphones that run it.
"These products have been well received by the market, with consumers eager to download and engage with mobile applications and services, such as Internet browsing, social networking, games and navigation," added Jones.
Apparently this sales growth for smartphones running Android could suggest that Nokia and the others' market positions are shaky. So, money well earned at Canalys. µ
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...I just had to point out that this is my favorite Android-related article of all time. By a narrow margin, it beats out the #2 article (courtesy Engadget) from 2007. Here's that headline.:
/Symbian, Nokia, Microsoft and Apple downplay Android relevance/
Gotta love that, don't you? Why, the nerve of those impudent Android...er, greenhorns. How dare they introduce the sweet breeze of open-source sensibility into the stale solemnity of a 4-way race among closed ecosystems, all grown properly fat on extortionate user-fees while paying pro forma lip-service to the distant notion of public license! Still, I can't help but wonder how that turned out, for all concerned. Really must catch up on my light reading, some day.
So, Inquirer team -- keep up the good work. Expose the pompous know-nothings and skewer small-minded sycophants, but please don't lose any of that wonderful snarkitude. :-D
Afaik Nokia area planning to start rolling out Maemo with their new high end smartphones.
I quite like symbian myself, very fast and does what you want a phone to do first and foremost, and has a nice range of apps to help it do other things (windows file sharing for instance).
your absolutely right........
they should release android based handsets, and do their own custom overlay like HTC and Motorola do
Nokia should join the Android bandwagon till it has decent phones and operating systems out. Intel moorstown is not due for another year and its own N8 is late as well . Symbian and Meego have a very limited apps. Better support android , then being digested by those supporting it.