Juniper Research, a telecoms analyst firm, recently released a report on Mobile Open Source Operating Systems, which predicts open source platforms will remain predominant and that, by 2014, Symbian handset shipments will increase from 87 million to 180 million per year, with Android and Limo adding 40m/year extra and taking the open source total to 220 million/year. Such analyst reports are educated guesses, but it does provide an antithesis to the 'Symbian is doomed' line that was popular, in some quarters, earlier this summer and a good jumping off place for some further platform thoughts. Read on for more.
Read on in the full article.
How the hell do they know this are they wizards
In my humble opinion as a mobile industry consultant and observer (not to mention J2ME/Symbian/mobile web developer) I think you're right on Symbian. All this "Symbian is doomed" nonsense did was show up those voices in the industry who don't really have a clue - they genuinely discredited themselves, which is unfortunate if they are supposed to know what they're talking about.
I'd agree on the Android front, though I think even that market share is optimistic. Android is mostly hype at the moment, with plenty of potential problems, and little substance. Having done a professional study of it's SDK I'd say the OS has (had?) much potential, but currently it hasn't really got off the starting blocks. This will only change if we see lots of handsets actually in people's pockets. It's market share is miniscule at the moment.
I think many analysts would disagree somewhat with your outlook on WinMo. Ballmer (Steve, CEO) gave a presentation (http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail/2009/09-29NewEfficiency.mspx) very recently and made no mention of mobile (in the sense of phones rather than laptops) in MS' future. Most analysts and industry opinion seems to converge on the gradual decline of WinMo - it really is a pretty hopeless piece of software, and more of a fundamental problem - MS have proven time and time again that they don't understand mobile phones. Not surprising given their history on being so PC centric, and attaining their dominance through marketing and questionable business practices, rather than quality.
iPhone is a real minority handset (and platform), and unless we see a cheap and good iPhone Nano type device, it will remain so. 1% of the global market is not really that significant, even it makes a few developers a bit of money.
The future is Symbian's, if it grabs it.
Interesting to see Tomi Ahonen striking a similar analysis today too - at http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2009/10/the-truth-about-smartphone-market-shares-is-rim-dying-nokia-tanking-and-apple-at-40-no.html
Great to see some facts breaking out in the midst of over-zealous blog entries...
In case it not clear - this (and the news item) is my opinion - the Juniper numbers were just a jumping off point. Though I think it is emblamatic of a recent trend which has seen a more positive outlook for Symbian from within the industry as a whole.
Unregistered - thanks for your comments. I think there's always a disconnect between observers of the industry versus those who analyse it (or have more experience). Amongst observers there a tendency to extrapolate based on current high end device. Its also difficult to see outside your own market (emerging markets tend to get less attention that they deserve). In some sense the same thing happens with open mobile OS (smartphones) versus proprietary software in general. Its important to keep things in perspective as they only make up part of the market (i.e. feature phones still 'rule'😉.
As for Windows Mobile - yes there's been some mixed messages recently (and no question the current state is not good), but I don't really see Microsoft withdrawing altogether. I personally think Windows Mobile will stay around, but we may see Microsoft explore other mobile options (e.g. Nokia alliance, Danger acquisition, Zune). Definitely room for uncertainty here though, so yes I may be being too optimistic.
Good article. I always find it amusing when commenters and, sadly, some bloggers post articles about Symbian being doomed and the likes of the iPhone dominating because the numbers don't add up.
The iPhone sold 5.2 million units (mainly 3G but with perhaps a million 3GS in there) last quarter of which roughly half were sold in the US where Nokia has no meaningful presence. This means they sold, say, 2.8 million outside the US.
Nokia on the other hand sold over 3 million more smartphones than they did in the yearly quarter on quarter comparison meaning that they increased their ex-US sales volumes more than the total number of ex-US iPhone sales. That kind of puts things into perspective.
Of course the iPhone is a great phone but I do think the tech press get a bit carried away with the hype.
Then again, from a business point of view, in some sense all that matters is how much profit you are making - iPhone is capturing a much larger share of the market if one looks at it that way.
But yeah, I love to see people starting to get things into a bit more perspective. SF is here, alive and kicking, and likely to be the absolutely undisputed market leader for a LONG time to come.
It makes me laugh when people compare a manufacturers sales from MUTLIPLE Telephony companies of that of another manufacturer from a SINGLE telephony company. The iPhone is seeing rises again and again and this is from selling to a single network, just wait till next year when the exclusive deals end and the iPhone is available from every network, unlocked and subsidised. THEN we'll see how well this thing will do (iPhone) THEN it will be an Apples to Apples (heh) comparison 😉
It makes me laugh when people compare a manufacturers sales from MUTLIPLE Telephony companies of that of another manufacturer from a SINGLE telephony company.
It makes me laugh when a company adds the sales of all its phone models together and then throws in some PMP sales to boot.
As for multiple carriers, the iPhone is available on 5 carriers in Australia. It's improved sales a bit but Nokia still outsell it comfortably. Plus, of course, the 5800 outsells it in most ex-US markets too.
Like the article shows, you can actually research this stuff if you want to. Beats pointless hype any day.
That graph is wrong. The OS on the iPhone is hardly an open mobile OS.
@ viipottaja
> Then again, from a business point of view, in some sense all that matters is how much profit you are making - iPhone is capturing a much larger share of the market if one looks at it that way.
What? That completely doesn't make sense 😊 Are you trying to say Apple's profits on iPhone sales outweigh Nokia's profits on their vastly larger sales? That makes no sense at all, and is false.
And how is either of that related to market share? Profits do not imply market share. The other way round can see some correlation but it's not an absolute direct linkage.
@ viipottaja
Focus on profit alone is not at all sensible. Depending on your business plan, a loss-making strategy this year and next is quite acceptable, if the goal is longer term.
Not applicable to Nokia though, they are turning profits.
A rational view. So much judgement is based on personal requirements. People believe that if their own needs are not met, then the entire global market feels the same.
Silly statements like:
"Nokia are going down the hole because they won't add xenon flash.....won't add kinetic scrolling to their old phones..... won't use capacitive screens". All of these decisions by Nokia have sound reasons.
The importance of market shares depends very much on one's own relation to that market.
If you are sellign snap-on covers for Nokia phones, Nokia's huge market share in basic phones is hugely important, but if you are selling Symbian OS software, Nokia's huge market size in basic phones is largely irrelevant.
If you sell iPhone software, the size of the iPod touch user base is very relevant, but if you sell voice and data services, you couldn't care less.
Hi,
Some have hinted on this, but I would like to hear Rafe's opinion on what opportunities the various platforms give to 3rd parties, particularly 3rd party developers, but also operators and any other businesses other than the manufacturer's that can influence the long term viability of a platform.
What do you think, Rafe?
Max.
Being both a Symbian N97 and Iphone user, I would say both have pluses and minuses.....but to say that Symbian is going to dominate like this is kind of hard to swallow.
Nokia is just starting to work on the Software side of things with the N900 and S60V5 updates.......will Nokia and Symbian be leaving soon....no, but than again I do see other platforms catching up.
There are other analysis out that say Iphone can double in market share if they end exclusivity deals with Carrier....it happened in France, so the potential is there. To be fair, the Iphone is a single phone that competes with Symbian, Winmo, and Android with multiple phones.
Similarly I think we will have to see how WebOS, Android, and Apple OS develops to see how competitive it will be....don't forget that Nokia is moving towards Maemo phones as well and how that will play out is also interesting to see how it will affect Symbian sales.
tkao2025 wrote:
There are other analysis out that say Iphone can double in market share if they end exclusivity deals with Carrier....it happened in France
It happened in the UK. It has also been the case in Australia. It will be reality in other countries as well.
However, Apple probably has so restrictive agreements for the permission to offer iPhone, that not all operators are going to accept them.