By Natasha Lomas, 5 February 2008 16:44
NEWS
It may be shiny and new in the smart phone club but Apple has already grabbed enough market share to overtake Motorola on the handset leaderboard.
Latest stats from analyst house Canalys show Apple cut itself a 6.5 per cent chunk of the smart phone market in the last quarter of 2007, flogging more than 2,320,000 iPhones and stepping into line behind head-and-shoulders-above-the-rest Nokia - which shipped more than 18.8 million devices in the same period (a 52.9 per cent share).
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Second place RIM offloaded more than four million BlackBerrys, giving it an 11.4 per cent share of the market. Motorola managed to sell just over 2,301,000 devices in the quarter, lagging slightly behind Apple.
Total global smart phone shipments more than doubled last year, growing to 118 million units - up 53 per cent on 2006.
Converged device shipments - which lumps smart phones together with PDA-style wireless handheld devices that also offer voice functionality (a distinction which seems increasingly archaic) - rose 72 per cent year-on-year in the last quarter of 2007, the highest growth seen all year.
Pete Cunningham, senior analyst at Canalys, said Apple has issued a "wake-up call" to the market with its user interface innovation which has caused competitors to take a long hard look at their less slick offerings, prompting "a lot of design activity".
This view is shared by Jason Chapman, research VP at Gartner. "Apple have shown how easy it can be," he told silicon.com.
But the Mac-maker will need to have a few more tricks up its sleeve if it is to continue to thrive in the smart phone space, according to Canalys' Cunningham.
He said in a statement: "What it [Apple] must demonstrate now is that it can build a sustainable business in the converged device space, expanding its coverage and product portfolio. It will also need to ensure that the exclusive relationships that got it so far so quickly do not prove to be a limit on what it can achieve."
Cunningham added: "Experience shows that a vendor with only one smart phone design, no matter how good that design is, will soon struggle. A broad, continually refreshed portfolio is needed to retain and grow share in this dynamic market."
Comments
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1. Chris St Cartmail
What will set the iPhone apart in this market is the level and speed of innovation Apple brings to its products. I struggle to think of one mobile phone competitor, RIM included, who can match Apple in this respect. The latest iPhone update was truly fantastic and added a new dimension to the phone. In addition to the very clever geo-positioning, it is very handy to be able to add your own web shortcuts to the front icon screen. The really tech-savvy corporate users can create their own javascript/ajax applications to interface in with company intra/extranets.
If Apple can keep up the pace of innovation, they will really be a force to reckon with on the business mobile front. Looks like O2 are starting up business tariffs at last,which is good news, as was the recent decision to double the free calls and texts.
2. Richard Peters
I can't help feeling that IPhone sales would rocket if the practice of expensive, exclusive contract deals were ended. I was sceptical about the phone at first but was won over by the innovative design and user friendly interface. I will wait for the French unlocked version before considering a purchase.