14 DAY TRIAL // Gartner released recently a market research study showing that the mobile phone market went down by about 6 percent during the second quarter of the ongoing year, and that the smartphone area of the market went up by 27 percent during the time frame, compared to the same period a year ago.
Among the other findings that the reports showed, we can also count the fact that the Symbian platform accounted for 51 percent of the smartphone operating system market, marking a drop from the 57 percent market share it registered a year ago. At the same time, the market share of Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS also went down on a yearly basis, reaching 9 percent in the second quarter of the year.
“Microsoft licensees HTC and Samsung continued to add features to their own interfaces, on top of Windows Mobile, to create more competitive products and make up for the usability constraints of the Microsoft platform,” said Roberta Cozza, principal analyst at Gartner. According to the report, RIM and Apple managed to increase their market share on a yearly basis.
The research firm also stated that the competition on the smartphone market was expected to grow tighter during the second half of the ongoing year. One of the OSes that are expected to see an increased traction on the market is the Android, which at the moment has less than 2 percent market share, but which will grow due to the launch of new devices.
Symbian and Windows Mobile might continue to drop in market share due to the competition on the market, yet we should probably take into consideration the fact that both platforms are on the verge of great changes in their attempt to become more competitive. The ready-to-be-released Windows Mobile 6.5 should mark a great switch in the OS' approach on the user experience, while future Symbian flavors have already been announced to bring novelties into the equation.