IDC: iPhone and BlackBerry catching up Nokia in smartphone market share

Paul Nesbitt

Sales of both the BlackBerry and iPhone grew faster than the total global market for smartphones during 2009, as both devices retained their No. 2 and No. 3 positions and closed in on Nokia's No. 1 market share, according to IDC.

Market researcher, IDC estimates that around 174.2 million smartphones were sold around the world during 2009, an increase of 15.1% on 2008's 151.4 million smartphones sold.

During 2009 Nokia accounted for a 38.9% (down from 2008's 40.0%), followed by RIM's BlackBerry range which was 19.8% (up from 15.6%), with Apple's iPhone on 14.4% (up from 9.1%). HTC was in fourth place with 4.6% (down from 5.0%) and Samsung came fifth with 3.3% (down from 3.6%).

Apple's position improved the most with the iPhone registering a 81.9% growth in global unit sales from 13.8 million in 2008 to 25.1 million during 2009. RIM's BlackBerry sales rose by 46.2% during the same period to reach 34.5 million units during 2009.

Nokia sold 67.7 million smartphones during 2009, a 11.9% growth compared to 2008.

For the last quarter of 2009, Apple and RIM came even closer to Nokia. Global unit market shares for Q$ 2009 were Nokia with 38.2% followed by RIM's BlackBerry line with 19.6% and Apple's iPhone with 16.0%.

The launch of Motorola's Android-based Droid late last year helped the company reach fourth place with a market share of 4.4% for Q4 2009.

Outlook for 2010

IDC predicts that global smartphone sales will reach a new record high this year.

'2009 was the coming-out party for Google's Android and Palm's webOS as both operating systems revealed new ways to surround the users with increased functionality,' said Kevin Restivo, IDC senior research analyst.

'More advances are in store for 2010 as Symbian and Windows are expected to unveil new versions of their respective operating systems. These and other operating systems will compete with attention-grabbing intuitiveness and seamlessness, a thriving mobile application library, and a compelling user experience that tightly holds on to the user.

'In the end, users will benefit from not only greater usability, but greater personalization and customization as well,' he said.