ANALYSIS: How the Year 2011 Will Pan Out in Smartphones

THE PROJECTION FOR 4Q 2011 IS AN INDICATOR FOR 2012

But with the best info we have now, if Stephen Elop continues in charge of Nokia, if Apple gives us no Nano iPhone, etc, and we get this 4Q picture, this will also be a strong pre-cursor of the world into 2012. Who are the big players next year are far more based on this Q4 picture than the full-year 2011 picture. The market shares only based on Q4 numbers as per the above early projection:

Brand . . . . . . Q4 Units . . . Q4 2011 Market Share (vs. Q4 2010 market share)
Apple . . . . . . . 36.4 M . . . . 25%   (16%)
Samsung . . . . 33.8 M . . . . 23%   (11%)
HTC . . . . . . . . 18.2 M . . . . 13%      (9%)
RIM . . . . . . . . 11.1 M . . . .  8%     (14%)
LG . . . . . . . . . 10.6 M . . . . . 7%      (5%)
Nokia . . . . . . . 9.5 M . . . . . 7%     (29%)
Sony Ericsson . 5.9 M . . . . . 4%     (4%)
Huawei . . . . . . 5.8 M . . . . . 4%     (2%)
Motorola . . . . . 4.2 M . . . . . 3%    (5%)
ZTE . . . . . . . . . 4.1 M . . . . . 3%      (1%)
Others . . . . . . . 5.7 M . . . . . 4%    (3%)

TOTAL . . . .  145.3 M

Projection  Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Sept 7 2011. This  forecast may be freely quoted and distributed

This is fascinating... going into 2012, the world will see a royal clash of two giants, Apple vs. Samsung for Smartphone handset brand hegemony, roughly counting for half of all Smartphones sold and running very tightly for the world championship. These two are rivalries such as the Airbus and Boeing in the airplane space, General Motors and Toyota in the car industry… you get the picture.

Then we see HTC all by itself in third place, the contender, growing and putting distance to the pretenders.

In the pretender category we see struggling RIM, the badly wounded Nokia and surging LG. During 2012, Nokia would shift its Symbian (and MeeGo) Smartphones to Windows Phone 7, so it being a transition year, expect few gains if any in the races, giving rivals plenty of chances to pass Nokia and consolidate their positions.

In the also-ran category or the very dark horses we see SonyEricsson, Huawei, ZTE and Motorola. Now let's look at Q4 from the OS point of view.

OS . . . . . . . 4Q Units . . . 4Q 2011 Market Share (vs. Q4 2010 market share)
Android . . . . 75.9 M . . . . 52%   (30%)
iOS . . . . . . . 36.4 M . . . . 25%   (16%)
RIM . . . . . . 11.1 M . . . .   8%   (14%)
bada . . . . .  10.5 M . . . .   7%     (3%)
Symbian . . . . 5.8 M . . . .  4%    (32%)
MS WP7 . . . . 5.1 M . . . .  4%     (2%)
MS WM6 . . . . 0.1 M . . . .  0%     (2%)
MeeGo . . . . . 0.8 M . . . .  1%       ( - )
Others . . . . . 0.6 M . . . . . 0%    (1%)

TOTAL . . . 145.3 M

Projection Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Sept 7 2011. This forecast may be freely quoted and distributed

An utter and total comprehensive collapse by Symbian… The world's bestselling smartphone OS of 2010 utterly self-destructed and abandoned 7 out of every 8 customers it had. Even if you add all Symbian, and all Microsoft (both Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7) and all MeeGo phones together, Nokia+Microsoft had 36% before the alliance (Symbian+MeeGo+WinMo+WP7) and will find themselves with mere 9% at the end of this year. This is a literal case of where 1 + 1 is far less than 2. The alliance has obliterated 3/4 of all the customers they had separately, when now added together.

Who gains the most? Google Android, Apple iPhone and Samsung bada. RIM is mysteriously unable to capitalize on the Nokia collapse, but that company is experiencing an operating system shift as well.

And then that wives' tale of 'the third ecosystem' that the Microsoft-Nokia spin-machine is now weaving. No, it ain't. Not the third eco-system, not by any measure. Not now and not next year either. Nokia's Symbian was the 'first eco-system' and by far the biggest by almost every conceivable measure, or second biggest by the only other measures that mattered, until Elop killed Symbian. Going into 2012, the mess that is Nokia + Symbian + Meego + Qt + Ovi + Microsoft + Windows Mobile + Windows Phone 7 will be the FIFTH ecosystem, behind Android (half of the world), Apple iPhone/iOS (a quarter), and RIM QNX and Samsung's bada. Fifth, not third. With at best something near 8% and declining, not 20%.

CONCLUSION? FAR FROM IT
So there you have it. Note, this is preliminary but I do think that excepting for some truly dramatic news, we should see full-year 2011 market shares reasonably close to the ones I had in the top half of this projection. I will have more data points when we get 3Q results - and that might change the model for 4Q. As all who understand forecasts know, the further we project into the future, the greater the errors in it. And yes, please remember, no forecast can be accurate, nobody has a crystal ball, so this is only a guess like any forecast. But I am known as the most accurate forecaster of the mobile industry, so where we all make errors, I believe this forecast will be closer to the truth (with less errors) than most… Forecasts like this are more useful in the trends they reveal than the absolute numbers they suggest.

Feel free to spread the info and obviously, if anyone needs deeper info into the handset market, consider my 2010 TomiAhonen Phone Book with tons of stats in it, the eBook format statistical guide fits into your pocket onto your Smartphone or Kindle or iPad and then you'll have all the major industry stats with you at all times. It only costs 9.99 Euros for immediate download.