Mar 11, 2009 12:12 PM,

RIM, Apple triumph over Nokia

By Sarah Reedy

Smartphones sales slow as Samsung entered the top 5, Nokia fell in ranking, Apple, RIM gain marketshare in Q4

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Smartphone-maker RIM increased its market share from 10.9% to 19.5%, while Apple more than doubled its share from 5.2% to 10.7%. RIM, which will announce earnings on April 2, issued revised guidance in early February suggesting that its lower-end handsets may actually be attracting the most subscribers. The OEM predicted 20% higher growth than the 2.9 million net subscriber additions it predicted in mid-December but is expecting earnings on the lower end of its previous guidance.

Apple did see its sales fall during the quarter, but the company held on to its number-three ranking amidst growing competition from RIM’s BlackBerry Storm, T-Mobile G1 based on Android and touch-screen products from both HTC and Samsung. Apple built up an inventory of about two million iPhones in the third quarter, which it did not reduce significantly in the fourth, according to Gartner.

The relative success of the device makers also had an effect on their operating system partners. Nokia’s smartphone OS Symbian suffered as well, losing global market share as it fell to 47.1% in the fourth quarter down from its 2007 share of 62.3%. Microsoft, on the other hand, improved its share of the smartphone market by 16% sequentially, driven by the popularity of the Samsung Omnia and touch-screen handsets from HTC. Linux-based smartphones were up 19% YoY as Android-based smartphones became available from T-Mobile during the quarter. Gartner estimated that Android accounted for 20% of Linux’s total quarterly sales.

Overall, worldwide smartphones sales reached 38.1 million units in the quarter, a YoY increase of 3.7%. For the year, global smartphones sales were 139.3 million devices, up 13.9% compared with 2007. Cozza concluded that the North American smartphone market will continue to grow despite the larger economic problems. Smartphone devices accounted for 20% of sales in the region, which is an increase of 69% since 2007. Growth might stall as full-featured enhanced phones come out at lower price points, but the market will continue to see aggressive support from operators pushing data plans.