Symbian popularity drops as Android advances

LATE BLOOMING SMARTPHONE MAKER Nokia will see its beloved Symbian operating system take a hit as Android continues its march towards dominance.

According to Digitimes Research, the market for smartphones has ballooned and manufacturers will flog over 280 million of the devices in 2010. Samsung and LG will see the biggest gains, with the analysts reporting that both outfits will invest more in producing handsets running Google's Android operating system (OS).

The Linux-based Android OS has already had tremendous growth in 2010, with Digitimes saying that 13.8 per cent of all smartphones use the OS. By the end of the year, the analysts say that nearly a quarter of all smartphones sold will be running Android.

That growth will come mostly at the expense of Symbian, the aging OS that Nokia continues to back. The firm decided to load the latest version of Symbian on its upcoming N8 smartphone that is scheduled to tip up some time in late September.

Figures from Digitimes suggest that by the end of the year, Android's market share will be only seven percentage points behind that of the market leader Symbian. While the firm makes no predictions on 2011 growth, it would be surprising not to see Android level pegging with or in front of Symbian come 2012.

As for the alternatives, Research In Motion (RIM) and Apple are duelling it out for third place, with Digitimes saying that by the end of 2010 their market shares will be 16.4 and 15.2 per cent, respectively. Surprisingly, those figures for the Iphone OS represent a drop, albeit a small one of just 0.4 percent. It is perhaps the first indication that users are getting fed up with the numerous faults that have turned up in Apple's latest Iphone. As for Microsoft, well that's a story best left to Digitimes.

"The software giant will have a difficult time maintaining its market share above 5 [per cent] as the launching of its new Windows Phone 7 OS has been delayed to the fourth quarter and sales of Windows Mobile smartphones [are] still showing no signs of rebound."

We have hand it to Digitimes for showing such diplomacy. A more frank version would be that the Vole is sinking without a trace, Windows Phone 7 will be late and nobody wants its current crop of phones, but then again not everyone displays our lack of tact and sensitivity.

For Nokia this is just the latest in a long line of evidence that its late smartphone strategy has cost it dearly. After posting disastrous financial results, Nokia's figures as reported by Digitimes only confirm those released by Gartner last week.

These sales figures should provide Google with some good news after a week of criticism following its deal with Verizon to subvert net neutrality and comments made by its CEO Eric Schmidt on privacy, not to mention getting sued by Oracle over its Android mobile OS. µ