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Analyst Predicts Android Overtaking iPhone In 2012

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the crystal-balls-and-voodoo dept.

Market watcher Gartner is claiming that by Q4 2012 Google's Android smartphone OS will have overtaken Apple's iPhone. Currently only the sixth most popular phone OS, Android is set to rocket into second place behind Symbian if the predictions are to be believed. The reason for the changing of the guard is that "many handset makers are betting their futures on Android, while Apple is just one company." 2012 rankings place Symbian at the top followed by Android, iPhone, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry."

3 of 385 comments (clear)

  1. Symbian and Windows Mobile by sopssa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wish Symbian would die already, its a horrible system and all apps require certification from Symbian if other users want to run them.

    Windows Mobile I still except to stick around, it's quite nice system and you can run any apps on it (I have HTC so I only have experience with their modifications to it, but still)

    However it doesn't really come as a surprise that Android is going to climb it's place up, and great that it is. Even if iPhone is a nice phone OS, it's way too locked down, only runs on Apple's closed phones and apps store.

  2. Here's where it lost me by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Windows Mobile's share will grow from 10.3 per cent to 12.8 per cent during the same quarters, Gartner added, which will see it remain as the fourth most popular phone-based OS.

    So Gartner is saying WinMo will grow. Based on what? Their last release 6.5 is being panned by many reviewers as window-dressing of 6.1 with few new features. The only thing that WinMo users can hope is that WinMo 7 will catch up to iPhone, Android, Palm OS, etc. But at the earliest this is a year away and no one has seen it yet. By that time, WinMo competitors are not likely to be sitting idle and will be continually updating their software.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  3. Re:and the iTunes store was crushed by rivals in 2 by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Focused competition will beat apple (remember Palm vs Newton?), but unfocused, dispersed competition is going to have a hard time beating Apple at their own game.

    Each sector of a market has it's own influences. So it's a little tricky (if not downright self deceptive) to draw conclusions from one and apply it to another. That being said...

    The PDA sector was different. The Newton was cutting edge - but it was part of an emerging market. Things really didn't take off until Palm introduced the right form factor. So while it isn't fair to say Palm invented the PDA, they really set the market. But then, that market has ceased to exist along with Palm's domination.

    Another example with some parallels is the microcomputer market. Apple defined that market. They weren't the first microcomputer. But they were, at the least, among the first to treat it as a consumer device. They were the first platform for the killer microcomputer business app - the spreadsheet. A market exploded around them. And while they were challenged by IBM's entry in to that market (after IBM realized what was going on in a sector they ignored), it wasn't until IBM lost control of their platform and the "PC" became commodity did Apple get truly buried. This despite the (arguably) superior product of the Mac.

    Again - this doesn't mean that what happened in the PDA market or the Personal Computer market is guaranteed to be repeated with mobile computing. But it does provide enough parallels to keep in consideration when trying to make an educated guess at the future.