Study: Smartphone Popularity Increasing

AdMob has recently stated that the Smartphone market share all over the world increased to 33 percent in February 09 from 26 percent in September 2008 in its latest study titled, “AdMob (News - Alert) Mobile Metrics Report February 2009.”

The study is well aligned with TMC’s prior report about Smartphone sales predicted to improve in 2009 while normal handset sales would relatively go slow.

The AdMob Feb 09 report allegedly reviewed, compared and correlated multiple Smartphone makes such as iPhone (News - Alert) from Apple, the latest N Series and the 6120c from Nokia, the recent BlackBerry series from Research in Motion (RIM), BlackJack from Samsung, Dream (G1) and Touch from HTC, Q9C from Motorola, Sidekick from Danger, and Centro from Palm.

The report research included the popularity of each model in different geographies such as the USA, UK, the rest of Europe, South Africa, China, Japan, India and the rest of Asia, South America and Australia; and with respect to the type of Operating Systems (OS’s) preferred such as Symbian (News - Alert), iPhone OS, RIM OS’s, Windows Mobile, Android from Google and Palm OS.

The world’s most popular Smartphones were iPhone with a 33 percent share, N70 - 7.1 percent, BlackBerry 8300 - 4.2 percent, N80 – 3.5 percent, N73 – 3.4 percent, and Centro came in ninth at 2.6 percent.

The figures were slightly different for the US and Canadian markets with the number one position captured by iPhone with nearly 50 percent of the market share, BlackBerry 8300 – 9.1 percent, BlackBerry - 6.9 percent, and Centro – 6 percent. Dream (G1) from HTC (News - Alert) made rapid progress to hold the number 5 spot at 5.2 percent since its inauguration 3 months ago and this statistic is in accordance with TMC’s earlier report that HTC had roped in significant contracts in late 2008.

The BlackBerry Storm was the most popular from Verizon with 14 percent in terms of service providers’ offerings. However, it comes in third at 7.6 percent when the global sales of only RIM mobiles were considered, Curve held top spot with 44.5 percent, and Pearl came in second 32.9 percent.

Global use of OS’s were logically led by the iPhone OS since its sales were highest in most Smartphone categories and was up by 29 percent from six months previous. Symbian had the biggest fall and was down by 21 percent. RIM OS, Windows Mobile, and Palm OS all had single digit drops.

In the US market again the iPhone OS led and went up to a 40 percent increase over six months with the next positive surge coming from the recently introduced Android (News - Alert) at 5 percent. Unfortunately, RIM OS, Windows Mobile, and Palm OS all had double digit drops.