By Jo Best, 10 September 2008 16:40
NEWS
While Apple's iPhone may be the first device most people call to mind when they think of a touch interface mobile, the 3G device is still lagging behind in the touchscreen shifting stakes.
According to a report from analysts ABI Research, Samsung and Motorola are the leaders of the pack in touchscreen mobiles, holding 33 per cent and 30 per cent of the market respectively. Sony Ericsson takes third place with 24 per cent share.
"All the other handset vendors - including Apple - are essentially niche players," ABI Research noted.
ABI puts Samsung and Motorola's dominance of the touchscreen mobile market down to their popularity in Asia, where 80 per cent of the world's touchscreen devices are sold. Such devices are popular in the region for their ability to allow users to input Asian language characters with a stylus, ABI said.
While Apple may not have been the first device maker to put a touchscreen on a mobile handset, the emergence of the iPhone has certainly boosted the market, inspiring a slew of imitators from Samsung's Omnia to Nokia's rumoured Tube phone.
ABI found that sales of touchscreen devices, including mobiles, personal navigation devices and tablets, rocketed - last year's shipments were up 91 per cent on the year before and the researchers believe that by 2009, the market will be worth $5bn, encouraged in part by the fall in cost of touchscreen component parts.
Comments
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1. anonymous
Some people like inferior and or cheap copies of apple products. The touch interface copies out there are just fluffed up mobile UI's.
2. Adam Wasserman
My son went out to buy an iPhone, but he came home with a Samsung Instinct instead...
When I asked him why, he told me it was because of the crazy plan Rogers wanted him to buy into for the privilege of being an iPhone owner.
3. anonymous
"Such devices are popular in the region for their ability to allow users to input Asian language characters with a stylus, ABI said."
iPhone 2.0 has excellent Chinese character input... you can use your finger to write out characters, no different from the other phones (except that no stylus is needed).
Considering that Apple only just started selling the iPhone in Asia, I think your article is factually incorrect and lacking in analytical depth.
4. anonymous
What a biased article. What is the point you are trying to make? Are you saying Apple should just give up? They just released it in Asia you moron! Of course they have a small market share.
5. Richard
When I see an article like this, I try to get inside the head of the author and see if I can somehow reach the same conclusions. I'm an intelligent person with a fairly good reasoning skills, and I've tried hard to get to the author's viewpoint. But in this case, either the author has some agenda to push or he/she is just plain ole stupid. (For the reasons cited in previous posts.)
6. Ollie Clark
I see the Apple fan boys have got in early!
The iPhone is a copy of plenty of earlier touchscreen phones, not the other way around.
The author said that touchscreen phones (including the iPhone) are popular in Asia because of Asian language input.
The author was taking about worldwide market share, not Asian market share. The iPhone's been out in the US and Europe for ages and it's only just caught up technically with the cheap phone I got a couple of years ago.
It may have a nice interface but all the other manufacturers were there with the technology years ago. They've done well to break into the market but I'd be surprised if they ever become a major player.
7. Anon
I love all the conspiracy theories out there that journalists have "agendas to push" - like there's a big plot to somehow undermine Apple and all it does. C'mon.
I'm a big Apple fan but the article makes a simple point - the iPhone is still new and touchscreen devices have a much longer history in Asia.
I'd be surprised if many of us reading or commenting on this piece have that much knowledge of Asian mobile trends or the different non-Roman scripts that have understandably placed that continent in the touchscreen vanguard. This piece made me think of the wider context.
I bet the folks at Apple are busy learning all they can from Asia rather than getting hot under the collar over this.