Google’s momentum in smartphones is not likely to stop at just overtaking Apple’s iPhone in terms of global sales, according to analysts from Taipei-based Digitimes Research, who are predicting that Android sales will jump to number two above Research In Motion’s BlackBerry before the end of the year.
Gartner, the research group, last week said Android’s global share in smartphones had jumped from 1.8 per cent a year ago to 17.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2010. This put it ahead of Apple’s iOS operating system, which had a 14.2 per cent share, but still behind RIM’s 18.2 per cent global market share.
Digitimes’ numbers are fairly similar, but analyst Luke Lin goes further in predicting that Android sales, which totaled 117m in the first half, would jump a further 40 per cent to 163m in the second half of this year. This would give Android a 20.3 per cent share of the global smartphone market, behind Nokia’s Symbian operating system with 35 per cent.
Android is expected to have the fastest growth among smartphone operating systems because “the world number two and number three phone makers, Samsung and LG, are expected to put far more resources into developing and marketing Android smartphones in the second half of the year compared to the first half,” Mr Lin said.
“From the expected BlackBerry models it seems there is very little room for [RIM] to raise shipment volumes significantly in the second half of the year,” he added.
That ominous forecast for RIM seems especially true today, as news comes that it only sold 150,000 units of its new model, the well-reviewed Torch, on its debut weekend.
