Respected mobile consultant, Tomi Ahonen, released his annual take on the smartphone industry last week including market share numbers for calendar 2011 as well as Q4. He covered pretty much the whole smartphone market including who the big smartphone vendors were, what operating system was the most popular as well as some indication of manufacturer market share within the Android and Windows Mobile operating systems.
The numbers show that Sony (Ericsson)’s market share grew by over two percentage points from 3.2 percent in 2010 to 5.5 percent in 2011. This puts Sony Mobile in sixth position (up one place from last year) overall behind the likes of Apple, Samsung, Nokia, RIM and HTC. A very respectable result in our eyes.
However, it was the Q4 numbers that perked our interest. The Android market shares for Q4 2011 put Sony Mobile in second place with a 12 percent share, marginally ahead of HTC at 11 percent. Samsung remains far and away in front though with 41 percent, highlighting their dominance. Despite this, Sony’s second place in Q4 bodes well. There are some cracking handsets due to launch in H1 2012 including the Xperia S and Xperia ion, and more to be announced on Sunday at MWC.
We very much see 2012 as a transition year for Sony Mobile and it will be very interesting to see where the company stands as it enters 2013. By the end of the year we should have a firm idea how Sony plans to leverage its IP and how well it is integrating the smartphone brand with the rest of its portfolio.
Via TomiAhonen Consulting 2012.
Thanks jdavidsson!
