Figures from ABI Research are predicting stellar results from Android over the next few years. As Symbian continues to collapse, other OSs will rush in to fill the void – and ABI feels that Android is best positioned to make a killing.
What’s the story?
In a nutshell, here’s what’s ABI Research is claiming:
• Android, Bada and Blackberry can make great gains if they take advantage of the Symbian retreat
• 45% of all smartphones will be running Android by 2016
• Apple’s iOS will account for 19% by then
• Blackberry will continue to grow – but the market will grow faster than it will, resulting in a drop from today’s 16% share to a 14% of the larger 2016 market
• Windows Phone 7 is facing the most dire struggle, and will have to perform incredibly well with it’s new Nokia deal to get even 7% of the 2016 market
What we think?
ABI is painting an incredibly grim picture for Nokia here. Between Symbian being reined in, and the new Windows Phone 7 deal being given down the banks, the analysts really don’t seem to see a bright future for the worlds biggest phone maker.
One thing I’ve seen popping up in a few articles has been variations on a theme of “Android will become more popular than Symbian”. Technically, I don’t believe Symbian ever was really popular. Sure it was wide-spread, but how many people with Symbian phones actually knew they were running the OS? They just thought they had a Nokia phone… names like S40 and S60 would have meant nothing to them. In order to be popular you need to be well known, and Symbian managed to be ubiquitous and invisible at the same time. This is one of the real strengths of the Android OS – despite colossal fragmentation across the market, most people with an Android device will say they’ve got an “Android”. They won’t say “I’ve got a Samsung” or “I’ve got a HTC”. It’s precisely the opposite issue that Symbian had. If this ABI Research highlights anything, it should be that Android itself is popular in a way that Symbian never was.
Agree with Blackberry (If they can get it together) sucking up a lot of remaining Symbian void. Those three (iOS, Android, Blackberry) and maybe (HP/WebOS) can stamp out that atrocity called WinPhone7…what a failure.