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Smartphone Market Update from Canalys

Even with all the excitement about new mobile phones, the smartphone market has been relatively stable over the past year, according to new Q3 figures from Canalys.

Even with the difficult economy, smartphones are still outperforming the overall mobile phone market, as global smart phone shipments grew 4% over the year, to 41.4 million units in Q3. Smartphones are also getting smarter, as the proportion of smartphones with touchscreens is 45% (vs. 31% last year), 80% have integrated GPS, and 75% have Wi-Fi.

The ranking of hardware vendors remained the same, with Nokia, RIM, Apple and HTC combined for over 80% of the market. In worldwide market share, Q3 2009 vs. Q3 2008,
Nokia leads with 40% (was 39%), RIM BlackBerry grew to 21% (was 15%), Apple iPhone is a new high of 18% (was 17%), and HTC has 5.3% (was 5.8%). Canalys reposts that the demand for iPhone 3GS far outstripped supply, and Apple’s satisfaction ratings were consistently highest of any vendor.

The ranking of operating system software was also relatively stable, with, the Google Android platform starting to make progress. Again in worldwide market share, Q3 2009 vs. Q3 2008, Symbian leads with 46% (was 47%), RIM BlackBerry is at 21% (was 15%), the Apple iPhone is at 18% (was 17%), with Microsoft Windows Mobile dropping to 8.8% (was 13.6%), and Google Android appearing at 3.5% (from just under 3% in Q2).

See the analysis at Apple Insider, including nice pie charts.

See my Mobile Communications Gallery for more on the smartphone market.

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