IDC revises 2015 smartphone estimates, predicts iPhone share will drop to 16.9%
The research group released the data in its Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report, expecting the smartphone market to grow by 55 percent to reach 472 million devices in 2011, MacNN reports. By 2015, the smartphone market is expected to double based on a compound annual growth rate of 20 percent.
Senior researcher Kevin Restivo remarked that the "floodgates are open wide" for the global smartphone market, especially in Asia-Pacific and Latin America.
According to the report, Apple's iOS will fall from an 18.2 percent share of the 2011 worldwide smartphone market to 16.9 percent in 2015. IDC sees Google's Android OS holding onto the top spot with 43.8 percent market share in 2015, up from 38.9 percent in a 2011. Research in Motion's BlackBerry OS is expected to slide from 14.2 percent to 13.4 percent.
In the next four years, the biggest shift will come from Nokia's Symbian, which IDC predicts will drop from 20.6 percent to 0.1 percent as the company switches over to the Windows Phone platform. Microsoft will see big gains from its deal with Nokia, jumping up from 3.8 percent in 2011 to 20.3 percent in 2015.
IDC's numbers have shifted since an earlier prediction from March. At that time, the group predict Android's 2015 market share would reach 45.40 percent, while iOS would hold just 15.30 percent. However, those predictions were published before Apple released its second quarter fiscal 2011 results, boasting a record 18.65 million iPhone sales with 113 percent year over year growth.
Apple is currently the No. 2 producer of smartphones, behind only Nokia, according to IDC. In the first calendar quarter of 2011, Apple sold 18.7 million iPhones for roughly 18.7 percent of the smartphone market, which totaled nearly 100 million devices.
96 Comments
Yeah, more soothsaying from experts.
...Kevin Restivo needs a track record check into how accurate he is.
I would be interested in hearing his justification for the large jump in Winokia phone share. While I have heard modest praise from some of the WP7 crew posting here - the comments weren't aligning with average consumer demands - and therefore the largest part of the market left to Apple and Google.
The other dark horses in this are the "unbranded" Android phones that those pesky cloners are cranking out in large numbers, the HP/Palm platform - is it only going to be tablets, or are they going to build smartphones too for WebOS.
And between now and 2015, what will be the dynamics with Android and ChromeOS?
EDIT:I did a quick non-scientific check out at Restivo's blog - definitely not impressed with his predictive ability. In fact, I'm amazed that he leaves his past blogs out there to review and see how inaccurate he's been.
I think Apple's recent announcements will make their devices much more resilient. iTunes Match converts to ACC and the cloud awesomeness is iPhones only.
Gee! Why tell us about 2015? I would much rather hear about 2030 or 2050! Just as valuable! Just as reliable, too. Thanks, IDC.
IDC is owned by IDG. IDG media company with a number of interests, including the "For Dummies" series of books. As in "Market Analysis for Dummies". IDG also runs trades shows, including MacWorld. (the trade show Apple dropped out of). IDG also runs websites that generate revenue from ads. So either someone contracts IDC to do a market analysis, or IDC is considered overhead and the studies are funded by IDG. The problem with most analysts and market studies is they are done through a perspective of models based on past actions, and don't really hold up to game changing events. I wonder if they analyzed which company will generate the most revenue through smartphones?