2011 is definitely the year of the Smartphone with an estimated 420 million units expected to ship around the world before the end of the fiscal year according to data from IMS Research
The company also predicts that by 2016 one billion Smartphones will be sold annually and will make up more than half of all mobile handsets sold around the world.
Among the industry’s big winners is Samsung which climbed from 3 percent of the market in Q1 2010 to 13 percent in Q1 2011. Apple as should be expected also witnessed some growth, capturing 19 percent of the global market in Q1, up 3 percent year-over-year. HTC is also a big winner, increasing their market share from 6 percent to 10 percent of the Smartphone market in a 12 month period.
It’s not good news for all Smartphone manufacturers though, Research in Motion , makers of the Blackberry line of devices lost 5 percent of their market reach over the last year, dropping to 15 percent of the global market while firing 2,000 workers this week, while Nokia year-over-year market share dropped by 16% to just 24% of the overall market. Nokia hopes to gain some market share back when their first Windows Phone 7 devices arrive.
While Google doesn’t manufacturer their own devices they also had an excellent year with their Google Android mobile operating system grabbing an astounding 38 percent of the worldwide market and 27 percent of the overall U.S. market, beating out Apple for the number one Smartphone sales record.
