14 DAY TRIAL // The competition on the smartphone market is expected to increase significantly during the ongoing year, with the Taiwanese mobile phone maker HTC Corporation being said to lose market share to rivals like Motorola, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics (LGE) and Sony Ericsson. The handset vendor is already known as being the leading supplier of Windows Mobile and Android-based devices, but that might change during 2010, it seems.
“Motorola actually replaced HTC as the fourth largest smartphone vendor in the fourth quarter of 2009 in terms of volume shipments, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) quoted IDC data as indicating. According to the data, Motorola shipped 2.5 million smartphones for a 4.6% share in the segment in the quarter ended December 31, 2009, whereas HTC shipped 2.4 million units for a 4.4% share during the same period, the paper noted,” reports DigiTimes.
According to the news site, industry sources in Taiwan suggest that HTC will see fierce competition from other handset vendors when this year's smartphone market is involved. Samsung, the second largest mobile phone maker in the world, is expected to ship 8-10 million smartphones in 2010, up from the 5.7 million units it delivered last year. More over, the company is said to plan the launch of smartphones powered by Windows Mobile, Android, LiMo and its own bada OS, which should help it gain more ground on the market.
LG Electronics is another South Korean handset vendor with great plans for the smartphone market for the ongoing year. The company already said it planned more than 20 smartphones for this year, and that it aimed at shipping around 10 million units in 2010, though it is expected to ship only around 3-5 million smartphones. As for Sony Ericsson, the handset vendor should launch the new Windows Mobile-based Aspen smartphone in Q2, and is expected to increase the outsourcing to the Foxconn Group so as to amplify its competitiveness, it seems.