Android Likely To Lead Smartphone Market This Year

Android's rocketing rise as a mobile platform is about to hit the stratosphere. According to a new report from industry research firm IDC, Google's open-source operating system, currently in second place worldwide, will become the leading smartphone operating system this year.

Ramon Llamas, IDC senior research analyst, said, "For the vendors who made Android the cornerstone of their smartphone strategies, 2010 was Android's 'coming-out party,'" while 2011 will be the "coronation party."

The report also projected that the worldwide smartphone market will grow 49.2 percent this year as consumers and enterprise users continue to move from feature phones. This growth rate is more than four times faster than the overall mobile-phone market.

'Pent-Up Demand'

According to IDC, the huge growth is due in part to "pent-up demand" left over from 2009, when buyers put off purchases. But the 2011 growth is actually down from last year's 74 percent, which IDC described as "exceptional." Unit sales are expected to be 450 million smartphones this year, compared to 303.4 million in 2010.

The other big shift in relative positions that IDC predicts is Windows Phone 7's emergence. Llamas said that until Phone 7's launch last year, Microsoft steadily lost market share to other operating systems. But the recent announcement by Nokia, the world's largest handset maker, that it will move from Symbian to Phone 7 was a lifeline to the software giant. Llamas said the alliance marries "Nokia's hardware capabilities with Windows' phone-differentiated platform."

The first Nokia devices with Phone 7 are expected next year, and, by 2015, IDC projects Phone 7 as the second-largest mobile operating system worldwide, behind Android.

45.4 Percent by 2015

In 2011, IDC predicts Android's worldwide market share will be 39.5 percent, growing to nearly half of all phones by 2015 at 45.4 percent. Symbian is currently second, at 20.9 percent, and, having been abandoned, that position will fall to nearly zero in four years. Apple's iOS is currently third at 15.7 percent and is projected to fall 0.4 percent.

Research In Motion's BlackBerry OS is now fourth at 14.9 percent, and is projected to drop slightly to 13.7 percent. Windows Phone 7 is projected to see the biggest increase, from its current 5.5 percent market share to 20.9 percent in 2015. Other OSes are projected at 3.5 percent in 2011, rising slightly to 4.6 percent by 2015.

Android, released a little more than three years ago, is now available on handsets from a variety of vendors, including LG, Motorola, Samsung, HTC and others. It has also emerged as a key competitive operating system to Apple for tablets.

In January, research firm Nielsen found about 40 percent of those who purchased a smartphone within the last six months chose an Android-based device. At the time of that report, Apple's iOS was the choice of about 27 percent, while the BlackBerry OS was chosen by about 19 percent.

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