Smartphones, iPhone still growing
It seems that nothing, not even a tenacious worldwide recession, can keep the smartphone market from growing and the Apple portion of it from growing even faster than the overall niche.
The latest quarter’s smartphone results are in from IDC and the news is not really news but more of the same. The world is still mired in a recession that seems to be hanging on for dear life despite random signs of recovery. Regardless, the smartphone market continues to grow by leaps and bounds inside the still-flat cell phone sector. Smartphone sales grew 4.2 percent in the quarter just ended, just the latest of a series of good news. Apple more than went along for the ride, achieving its highest sales level ever for the iPhone, according to a MacObserver article.
In part, the IDC quarterly report said, “Apple reached its highest volume yet in a single quarter. The nearly global availability of the iPhone 3GS sparked another round of annual replacements for Apple loyalists, while the lower price on the iPhone 3G put the device well within reach of customers wary of the price. Although the iPhone has struggled within emerging markets, its arrival at China Unicom this year could foreshadow greater shipment volumes.”
The big winner in the newly released numbers was Research In Motion, the maker of the Blackberry, whose shipment volume was up sharply. It was part of a quarter of mixed blessings for RIM, given their poor financial results for that same quarter and comes at a time when the company is feeling pressure of all kinds in a marketplace that it virtually invented, from price pressure to technology pressure. The big loser continues to be Nokia, who continues to bleed market share.
In addition to winners and losers, the smartphone marketplace has recently gained a wild card. Android phones in general, and the Motorola Droid in particular, give every sign of having a bright future. On this subject, the IDC report says, “The release of new Android devices has picked up dramatically over the past several months and the release of version 2.0 demonstrates that Android is rapidly evolving and responsive to suggestions from OEMs and developers. With an expanding portfolio of handsets and a just released update of the code, Android is poised to mount a serious challenge to the incumbent smartphone OEMs for the first time in its brief history.”
The smartphone ride is not only rapid. It is also proving to be wild. Fasten your seat belts; here we go again.
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