New stats were recently released by ABI Research showing that the iPhone could slightly be losing ground in its market share according to 9 to 5 Mac. Despite the iPhone's continued growth, that statistics show that Apple's device accounted for 16.6 percent of smartphone sales in the fourth quarter, compared to 18.1 percent in the third.
On the flip side though, Apple did sell 8.7 million iPhones in the fourth quarter, which is an increase of 18 percent more than in the previous quarter. But at the same time, as ABI noted, the overall smartphone market jumped 26 percent in the same time period. The industry was boosted by product launches from Google (with its Android system) and possibly Nokia.
ABI also noted that the last time the iPhone slipped in market share, was in the fourth quarter of 2008. "To lose market share in a record quarter, that's got to sting a little bit," noted an ABI analyst.
Image courtesy of The iPhone Blog
