“Research firm IDC has released its latest estimates of current market share for major smartphone operating systems, and its forecast for what the business will look like in 2016,” Harry McCracken writes for TIME Magazine. “The new data–which says that Android and iOS will go into decline while BlackBerry flatlines and Windows Phone booms — is getting lots of coverage, all of which treats it respectfully.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, um, Harry doesn’t read us. Not that we blame him; he likely has his reasons.
“But when I read IDC’s projections, my instinctive response is the same as it always is when a research company makes these forecasts: How the heck would it know what’s going to happen to smartphones? How could anyone?” McCracken wonders. “IDC makes its estimates on an ongoing basis; we always know its breakdown of current smartphone share and its forecast for four years from now. Judging from the past couple of years, the business is already changing in ways that IDC failed to anticipate. Its 2016 projections are sharply different from the ones it made in 2011 for 2015, which were a far cry from its 2010 projections for 2014. All of which leaves me deeply skeptical about the whole exercise.”
McCracken writes, “We don’t know a thing about what any of these operating systems will be like in a few years. Without that knowledge, it’s impossible to have an informed opinion about how they’ll fare.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Thank you, Captain Obvious.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “DustyMac” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
IDC: Windows Phone to pass Apple’s iOS by 2016 – June 6, 2012
IDC: Windows Phone to surpass Apple’s iOS by 2015 – June 10, 2011
I tried to find an IDC article on MDN from 5 years ago that predicted the iPhone share in 2012 but couldn’t. In place of that I found this gem:
Basically, IDC is run by jackasses.
Asinine at the time, an embarrassment to all life forms today.
Shows how these guys are total idiots and don’t have a clue
Lmfao!!
Ok my brother in law works for GE, A division of it anyway..
Last year they decided to replace the blackberries with iPhones (as a choice) when the employees are due for a new phone, contract up or in need of replacement etc.
He told me that as soon as that was announced.. People started having “issues” all of a sudden with their blackberries…
That’s one of the reasons he had to wait for months to get his iPhone, he didn’t break his blackberry even though he wanted too.. He waited until his time was up to request the iPhone. Which worked in his favor really.. He got the 4S instead of the 4.
Same thing happened when they started handing out iPads. They mentioned they would start sending them to employees that wanted one.. (they needed to prove a use for it though) they got hammered for requests lol.
Nah, iOS stuff has no place in business at all.
He said he’d get the iPad but it would never replace his laptop… He’s had it two weeks now, it already has.
Only reason he uses it, printing stuff. No AirPlay printing in his office, yet anyway.
They have been wrong ever since the iPhone was introduced. A stagnant market is easy to “forcast”… People also said Andoid tablets would be huge by now..and RIM wasn’t going anywhere..then there is the whole “people like their keyboards” thing. I wish I could get paid to be wrong year after year…
The hilarious thing (or sad, depending on your point of view) is that they think RIM will still be around in 2016.
I really loved the comments from “…IT Expert” at 12:59 PM. What an idiot.
This should have been a reply to Cubert’s link.
I remember that jackass. That twit still employed? If so, and if it’s still in the IT industry, he’s a lucky man. However I would advise he bone up on how to run a hot dog stand, since his days in the IT field are numbered.
…it’s impossible to have an informed opinion about how they’ll fare.
IOW:
Half-assed predictive ANALyst blether, such as that from brain dead IDC, is worthless shite. Thank you for verifying what we here at MDN already knew, Mr. McCracken. 😯
“Projections” have to be based on reality, not fantasy. Based on actual trends, my prediction is that the Windows Phone platform will be extinct by 2016.
(The Windows (PC) platform will still be alive, but only because some users and businesses will still be using Windows XP.)
Five years ago, who would have thought that Apple’s as-yet-unreleased iPhone would upend the mobile phone industry, and destroy the market share of the industry leaders RIM and Nokia.