iPhone Captures 17% of Smartphone Market
Posted 11/13/2009 at 12:48pm
| by Brian Proffit

Gartner research shows the iPhone now has 17% of the
smartphone market worldwide. That’s a huge jump from only 12.9% a year ago.
Nokia is still on top with 39%, but that’s down from 42% last year. Research in
Motion is in second place with 20.8% of the market. Interestingly enough, however,
Internet Ad Sales reports that the iPhone has passed RIM in western
Europe. HTC is fourth, but showed
a strong gain over last year. Apple’s numbers should be even stronger in the
fourth-quarter reports as Apple begins sales in China and 16 other countries.
Gartner research director Carolina Milanesi said, "The
third quarter of 2009 saw the announcement of many new mobile devices,
including several Android smartphones ready for the holiday season in the
fourth quarter, but hardware commoditization and the growth in open platforms
will make it harder for them to stand out."
Gartner said the average selling price of the iPhone was
expected to hold firm, which is good news for Apple since the average selling
price indicates a predominance of high-end 3GS models.
From an operating system standpoint, Android is still only
at 3.5% and Windows Mobile numbers continued to decline.