14 DAY TRIAL // The worldwide mobile phone market, as many of you might already know, has been greatly impacted by the financial downturn, and it was said on some occasions to be shrinking by about 10 percent during 2009, when compared to the previous year. The third quarter of 2009 has shown some signs of improvement for the market, and it seems that the fourth quarter is expected to be an even better one.
Regarding the ongoing quarter of the year, Jake Saunders, ABI Research's VP for Forecasting, stated that, “The outlook for mobile handset markets continues to improve. While 3Q-2009 showed a YoY 6.5% contraction in shipments to 291.1 million, 2009 should close out with only a 4%-5% contraction (to 1,138 million for the year).”
More and more mobile phone makers seem to be confident that the fourth quarter of the year will deliver better cash flow due to more robust sales. Starting with the third quarter of the year, markets like North America and Asia-Pacific are already showing signs of recovery, driven by enthusiasm for smartphones in the former and by increased interest in upgrades in the latter.
When it comes to the market shares handset vendors saw in the third quarter, Nokia remained on the first position with a little more than 37 percent share, followed by Samsung with around 21 percent market share. LG was on the third position, registering a 10.9 percent share, followed by Motorola and Sony Ericsson on the fourth and fifth place, respectively. Apple's iPhone has seen its market share increase significantly in said timeframe, up to 2.5 percent from 1.9, and ABI Research says that this growth should continue in Q4 as well.
“Despite the successes of the iPhone operating system, the leading player in the smartphone OS market is still very much Symbian (48%), followed by Blackberry (18%),” notes Kevin Burden, practice director of ABI Research, “The 'dark horse' in all this is Android.” The Android platform will have a very powerful player on its side starting with this week, when the Motorola DROID will arrive on the market on Verizon Wireless' airwaves. According to the research firm, Android is expected to account for 10 percent of the smartphone market by 2014.