The latest market data from analyst firm Canalys shows how much the converged device market (all smartphones and wireless handhelds) has grown over the past year. These, typically high-end, devices represented around 10% of the global mobile phone market by units in 2007, with annual growth of 60% making them one of the fastest growing segments of the technology industry. Year-on-year growth climbed every quarter throughout 2007, to reach a peak of 72% in Q4.
Apple’s entry into this market in 2007 with the iPhone sparked a lot of media attention and speculation about how much it could disrupt the status quo and take share away from companies such as Nokia, RIM, Palm and Motorola. “When you consider that it launched part way through the year, with limited operator and country coverage, and essentially just one product, Apple has shown very clearly that it can make a difference and has sent a wakeup call to the market leaders,” said Pete Cunningham, Canalys senior analyst, in the press release. “What it 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. Apple’s innovation in its mobile phone user interface has prompted a lot of design activity among competitors. We saw the beginnings of that in 2007, but we will see a lot more in 2008 as other smart phone vendors try to catch up and then get back in front. 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. This race is a marathon, but you pretty much have to sprint every lap.”
Canalys estimates that Apple took 28% share of the fast growing US converged device market in Q4 2007, behind RIM’s 41%, but a long way ahead of third placed Palm on 9%. This was also enough to put Apple ahead of all Windows Mobile device vendors combined, whose share was 21% in the quarter according to Canalys figures. In EMEA, where the iPhone officially launched part way through the quarter in only three countries, Apple took fifth spot behind Nokia, RIM, HTC and Motorola, but ahead of several established smart phone providers such as Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Palm.
For the full year 2007, as in 2006, the Asia Pacific region was the biggest in volume terms for converged device shipments. Apple has of course not yet launched the iPhone in the region, and many vendors who are successful in other parts of the world, such as RIM and Palm, have also made relatively little impact there so far. Nokia continues to lead in the region, with more than 50% share in converged devices, ahead of Japanese smart phone vendors Sharp and Fujitsu. Motorola, despite enjoying fourth place, has seen its Linux-based smart phone shipments in the region fall 28% from their high in 2006.
“The mobile Linux opportunity remains just that – an opportunity,” added Rachel Lashford, manager of Canalys in APAC, “Total Linux-based phone shipments in 2007 were almost flat on 2006. There is still too much fragmentation and not enough momentum for any single open standard around which the energy of developers, manufacturers and operators can coalesce.”
Nokia’s recent announcement of its intention to acquire Trolltech will no doubt have raised questions among some of Trolltech’s mobile phone producing partners about their Linux implementation strategy going forward. Meanwhile Google’s Android initiative, like others before it, remains an idea yet to turn into viable commercial products widely accepted by both mobile network operators and the mass market. Although off to a slow start, Canalys expects Linux will account for a significant proportion of mobile phone shipments within the next few years.
Lashford continued: “Rising consumer interest in having a rich, high-speed browsing experience on a mobile device, and the demand for visually sophisticated navigation and location applications will attract more companies into this arena. Flattening mobile data costs, and the advertising-funded possibilities generated by location-based services, will help reduce usage barriers. Improvements in the underlying technologies and innovation in user interfaces will lead to more usable devices. All these factors will help push the high-end mobile phone and smart phone segments forward. Meanwhile supply-side concerns around time to market and build and support costs will drive the industry to look for economies of scale. Mobile Linux can have a big part to play in this future, but at the moment the maturity of the other mobile operating systems puts them a long way ahead.”
In Q4 2007, Canalys estimates that Symbian had a 65% share of worldwide converged device shipments, ahead of Microsoft on 12% and RIM on 11%. By region, Symbian led in APAC and EMEA with 85% and 80% shares respectively, while in North America RIM was the clear leader at 42%, ahead of Apple at 27% and Microsoft at 21%.
The shipment estimates discussed above come from the market-leading Canalys Smart Mobile Device Analysis Worldwide service. Canalys’ globally consistent smart mobile device product segmentation and definitions are used by vendors the world over to provide a coherent view of the total market for smart phones, handhelds and wireless handhelds. Clients receive quarterly market updates, regular reports, trends presentations and forecasts, and direct access to the Canalys analysts. Canalys offers services looking at the smart mobile device markets by country in Asia Pacific, North and Latin America and EMEA, as well as providing global market overviews. It also has services focusing specifically on the rapidly developing markets for mobile navigation and Linux-based mobile phones, and survey-based analysis of consumer and enterprise attitudes and preferences toward mobile applications, products and services. More information is available from the Canalys web site.
Canalys specialises in delivering high quality market data, analysis and advice to the world’s leading technology vendors. It is recognised as a key provider of continuous advisory services and confidential custom projects for marketing managers and strategists within blue-chip IT, telecoms, navigation and consumer electronics companies. It has unrivalled expertise in routes to market for all kinds of high technology products and services in the consumer, SMB and large enterprise segments, and provides worldwide market data and trends analysis.
Source: Canalys
We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in. – Palm CEO Ed Colligan, commenting on then-rumored Apple iPhone, Nov. 16, 2006
There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get. – Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, April 30, 2007
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer laughes at Apple iPhone, BSes, and makes up market share percentages, January 17, 2007:
Direct link via YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5oGaZIKYvo
When is MS going to get rid of Ballmer? This guy clearly knows nothing.
Except how to dance like a monkey boy.
Wow. Just wow.
MDN magic word: dead. ‘Nuff said.
Feel the earth move under your feet?
Its the tectonic shift that’s in progress.
Hold on, ’cause its just beginning!
I love my iPhone. All the people that know me, want one too. Balmer is an idiot. Let them buy Yahoo and wast their money. Certain things you can’t buy, and one of them is innovation, and that is what Apple is all about and Microsoft will always lack.
And it hasn’t even been 12 months. No wonder there is so much negative news about Apple – they are trying to stop the inevitable.
Ballmer, you know you’re ugly and your mom dresses you funny ?
Wow…I never get tired of that video!
You can see in his eyes, he doesn’t even believe the shit coming out of his mouth!
LOL
Ballmer & Bush — two lying liars and no one holds them accountable for those lies. Like Pete Seeger sang in the ’60s: “We’re waist deep in the big muddy and the big fool says to push on.”
Calling ZuneTang – your comic relief is needed today ….
Good design should be a universally sought after trait, yet it takes little tiny Apple, the company that “doesn’t know anything about the mobile phone market” to come along and disrupt the status quo.
Just goes to show that a company that focuses on good design and is creative can kick the ass of the establishment.
MW: word
Wow, it’s like the iPod of phones!
And Amos, you were a lot funnier with Andy….
@ Amos
Please leave the politics off this board. There are plenty other places online for you to get in a scrum about it.
“If there is something good in the world then we copy with pride.”
– Anssi Vanjoki (Nokia VP & General Manager of Multimedia on his company’s plans to release new phone similar to iPhone in 2008.)
I’ll bet Ballmer locks himself into a closet at night with a box of ice cream sandwiches, a towel and an iPhone.
I like watching that video over and over again too. I especially like his guffaw at the start and the way his eyes give the game away. But I do get frightened when he says “NINETY-NIIIINE” and lurches forward at the same time. That’s very scary.
I could watch that video again and again.
Ballmer just cracks me up. He actually compares an iPhone with a cheap-ass Motorola Q!!!!!
MW: progress
Crow tastes good, doesn’t it Ballmer!
These Apple astroturfers a.k.a. analysts are waist deep in the big muddy and the big fool Jobs says to push on. I’d have to say my favorite quote from the article is this one:
“Apple has shown very clearly that it can make a difference and has sent a wakeup call to the market leaders…”
Hilarious. Hey Cunningham, the market leaders are awake already—most of them offer brilliant phones based on Windows Mobile. Why Crapple didn’t license Windows Mobile is beyond me. The only difference Cupertino has made is they’ve made the world’s most expensive phone. Ballmer’s right. You can get a marvelous Motorola Q for $99. It has real buttons and connects to Exchange servers. Buh-bye Apple.
Your potential. Our passion.™
I laugh because the cheap ass Motorola Q is actually more expensive over 2 years.
This never gets old.
You can see his mental wheels spinning for 5 to 10 seconds before he blurts out his FUD tyrade.
I would hate to have to work for him.
This guy writes:-
“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.”
These meaningless platitudes show that he doesn’t really get it either.
I don’t think Apple have to bring out the iPhone in various sizes, prices and colours. It’s a great success already, but it’s going to become a completely new, world-wide platform when the independent software developers get to work. Journalists like these always overlook the potential of the iPhone’s O.S., if they’re aware of it all.
Schwi-i-i-i-nnnnnn-g-g-g-g-g-g!
Ballmer, what a maroon!
maroon 2 |məˈrun| |məˈruːn|
verb [ trans. ] (often be marooned)
leave (someone) trapped and isolated in an inaccessible place, esp. an island : a novel about schoolboys marooned on a desert island.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE – someone out there in Redmond get a camera crew and a microphone and pose these same questions to his-baldness in our post-launched iPhone world. I’d happily pay $50 for a Pay-Per-View event just to see him eat copious amounts of Crow. But I guess no interviewer will attempt this – there isn’t enough hazzard-pay-death-by-flaming-chair-insurance to keep rightly-scared tech jounalists safe during such an event.
“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. This race is a marathon, but you pretty much have to sprint every lap.”
If that sentence applies to a hardware design, it will be proven more wrong than right. Apple will be refreshing its iPhone via software more often than hardware, while the others keep having to churn out new slightly different hardware models with the same crappy software but with possibly another hard-to-use feature bolted on. Maybe we’ll see another new iPhone hardware model this year for 3G, but it’ll be nothing like the 100s of models every year from Nokia. And we’ll see that it is not true that Apple “will soon struggle”.
PC guys aren’t going to just walk in…
in the phone world, what´s hot today is old news tomorrow.
———-