Google's army of Androids continues to race ahead in numbers around the world, toppling Nokia's Symbian to become the most popular smartphone operating system in the final quarter of 2010, according to a report from research firm Canalys. Global shipments of Android-based smartphones reached 32.9 million, squeezing Symbian down to second position with 31 million devices shipped. Although the latest numbers reflect a surge in the popularity of Google's mobile OS, Nokia is still the world's largest smartphone maker with a total market share of 28 percent, Canalys noted.
As a whole, the entire smartphone industry registered a year-on-year (YOY) growth of 89 percent with total shipments of 101.2 million units. In South Korea, the smartphone market ballooned to hit just under 3.4 million units shipped in the last quarter of 2010 compared with 700,000 units a year ago.
The picture is equally rosy across the straits in Japan. According to the research firm, 4.6 million smartphones were shipped in Q4 2010. This represented a growth of 48 percent compared with the same quarter in 2009. Canalys noted that local and international vendors such as HTC shipped a total of 1.4 million Android devices and the number is likely to grow even further this year as Japanese firms including NEC Casio and Panasonic hop on the bandwagon.
Meanwhile Nokia's smartphone market share in China dipped by 20 percent due to competition from the likes of Huawei and Samsung, although the Finnish phone-marker registered a 70 percent jump in volume compared with the same quarter in 2009. In total, the Chinese market grew 134 percent YOY compared with 64 percent in the US, Canalys' report noted. 11.2 million smartphones were shipped in China in the closing quarter of 2010.
Last week, Nokia warned of a gloomy start to 2011 as it "faces some significant challenges in our competitiveness and our execution", CEO Stephen Elop said in the company's earnings report. On February 11, the former Microsoft executive will unveil a new strategy as the outfit switches gears to compete in the ecosystem instead of devices. He also stressed the need to address the low-end and midrange markets with less expensive components and manufacturing processes.
"2010 has been a fantastic year for the smartphone market. After a difficult 2009, the speed with which the market has recovered has required real commitment and innovation from vendors and they have risen to the challenge," Chris Jones, principal analyst and vice president of Canalys, said in a statement.
Moving forward, the competition is likely to get even more intense this year.
"Vendors cannot afford to be complacent," Jones added.
"2011 is set to be a highly competitive year with vendors looking to use new technology, such as dual-core processors, NFC and 3D displays, to differentiate their products and maintain value."
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