The changes brought forth by the explosive growth of the smartphone market are now very visible in the overall mobile phone market, as Apple surpassed RIM as the fourth largest mobile phone supplier, while Sony Ericsson dropped off the top five list for the first time in years.According to IDC, Apple’s market share grew from 2.5% in Q3 2009 to 4.1% in the third quarter of 2010, which propelled it to fourth place overall. RIM grew from 2.9% to 3.6% in that same period, which secured its fifth place, while Nokia, Samsung and LG kept the first, second and third places with 32.4%, 21.0% and 8.3% market share, respectively.
IDC claims that smartphones will play an even more important role in the next couple of years. “This year, we are expecting the smartphone sub-market to grow 55% year over year. Vendors that aren’t developing a strong portfolio of smartphones will be challenged to maintain and grow market share in the future,” said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker.
The fact that the iPhone 4 started selling in 17 new countries this last quarter certainly helped Apple increase its market share, but things are looking good for Apple on all fronts. The fallout from iPhone 4’s antenna issues has all but disappeared; Apple itself said it sold 14.1 million iPhones in Q3 2010, a 91% year-over-year increase, and Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the company still has “a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year.”http://mashable.com/2010/10/29/apple-fourth-biggest-vendor/
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