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Consumers Are Pushing Up Sales of Smartphones
Mobile-phone sales worldwide headed up at the end of last year, according to a new report from industry research firm Gartner. Sales in the fourth quarter posted a 8.3 percent increase compared to a year ago, even though overall 2009 sales dropped 0.9 percent.
Gartner stated the drivers pushing up sales are smartphones and low-end devices. Smartphone sales, stated Gartner Research Director Carolina Milanesi, “continued their strong growth in the fourth quarter of 2009,” up 41.1 percent over 2008 to 53.8 million units. For all of 2009, smartphone sales were up 23.8 percent.
Android Versus Symbian?
The huge smartphone winners were Research In Motion and Apple, which now have 19.9 and 14.4 percent of the worldwide smartphone market, respectively. As premium devices, they spent last year busily capturing market share from other devices. Their operating systems still trail Symbian, which has almost half the market with 46.9 percent.
Microsoft’s Windows Mobile is in fourth place for smartphone OSes, with an 8.7 percent share, followed by Linux and Android in low single digits, and Palm’s webOS below a point.
A key battle shaping up in 2010 could be the one between the two leading smartphone open-source operating systems, Android and Symbian. The Symbian Foundation stated recently that a new version of its OS should be available by the end of March, which will be the first since the OS became fully open source. Android increased its market share last year by 3.4 percent, to 3.9 percent, but last year was its first full launch year.
Avi Greengart, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, stated that, “despite the recession, people are investing in smartphones,” which accounts for their continued strong sales performance. And, he said, “there is no question” that most of those buyers are consumers.
Samsung and LG Electronics
In addition to the growing competition between…
source : www.newsfactor.com
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Submited at Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 at 2:00 pm on tech by steve
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