Gartner estimated that Android smartphones will surpass the iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Mobile in global popularity. They also expect it to challenge Nokia in becoming the most popular mobile OS by 2014.
“It’s a matter of Android really going more into the hands of the mainstream user,” Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner. “The iPhone will remain focused toward the higher end of the market, while through the end of this year and into 2011, all that growth you see in Android will come from the fact that most of the vendors who are backing it will release cheaper smartphones.”
“It’s only a small decrease in share for Apple, which is a big achievement, because if you look at the growth rates, the smartphone market is growing very, very fast,” Cozza said. “Volume-wise, it’s a good trend for being such a high-end kind of platform, and I think Apple will keep it that way.”
IDC also sees strong growth for Android, expecting global marketshare of 24.9 percent of in 2014. “That flood of Samsung handsets, HTC handsets, LG handsets, Motorola — it’s just this sort of irresistible wave,” said Will Stofega, a mobile analyst for IDC of the growth of Android smartphones. “It’s difficult to say that they are not going to become more and more dominant as time goes on.”
Source: Mercury News
