Posted on Sunday, December 07 2008 @ 2:45 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
A report from research firm Needham cited by
Electronista reveals the Apple iPhone now has a marketshare of 16.6 percent in the global smartphone market:
Apple's handset has represented about 16.6 percent of the entire smartphone market worldwide for the quarter ended in September and is now second only to Nokia. The latter has already acknowledged struggling smartphone share but is now known to have plummeted from 63.3 percent of the market a year ago to 43.6 percent owing largely to the spike in iPhone sales triggered by its 3G version.
The figure was also partly buoyed by RIM's BlackBerries and the overall range of Windows Mobile phones, though each of these declined slightly between the spring and summer.
Apple's relaunch has been strong enough that it ultimately masked a potential stall in the overall smartphone market. While the rate of growth was flat between spring and summer at 28.6 percent, Apple's presence has been the "only reason" the market didn't slow down significantly, Wolf says.
In the US, Apple is now also second only to RIM, earning about 30 percent of the country's smartphone sales through the iPhone versus the BlackBerry lineup's 40 percent. Windows Mobile and Palm OS are continuing to decline with Microsoft's platform holding 17 percent and Palm less than 10 percent.
