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Apple, Android and RIM top for smartphone growth

Analyst firm Gartner has announced its figures for 2009 mobile phone sales to end-users. Nokia and Symbian still dominate the market but Apple, Android and Research In Motion (RIM) are top for smartphone growth.

The figures released today show that for smartphone sales to end-users by operating system, Symbian was the leader in 2009, with a 46.9 per cent market share. However, this was a 5.5 per cent decrease on its 2008 market share.

In this category, iPhone OS, Android and RIM showed the largest growth in market share in 2009, up 6.2, 3.4 and 3.3 per cent respectively, on the previous year.

Likewise, although Nokia was number one in terms of worldwide mobile terminal sales, with a 36.4 per cent market share, this was a decrease of 2.2 per cent on its share the previous year.

Samsung and LG were in second and third place for handset sales, with 19.5 per cent and 10.1 per cent market share each. This was a growth of 7.6 per cent and 4.5 per cent on 2008, respectively. Motorola lost 3.1 per cent market share in 2009, however, while Sony Ericsson lost 4.4 per cent market share.

The good news for 2010 is that Gartner analyst, Carolina Milanesi, predicts the market to grow by 11-13 per cent this year, compared with the company's 9 per cent forecast last December.

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