While accounting for 22% of the total global handset market, smartphones account for over 50% of market revenue. Apple, Nokia and RIM accounted for 64% of the revenue total. Apple, while trailing Nokia in terms of smartphone volume with a 16% share, generated 29% of total revenue. Nokia followed with 20% and RIM ranked third with a 15% value share, according to a Strategy Analytics research report.
“This illustrates how important the smartphone market has become for capturing mobile handset value, Tom Kang, director of Strategy Analytics’ Wireless Smartphone Strategies service. “Unlike feature phones, smartphone average sales prices have held steady in the $300 range during 2010, bolstered by the introduction of new technology, such as the Retina LCD and AMOLED displays, as well as high speed 1 GHz processors.”
With Google’s Android recently surpassing Apple’s iOS for the largest share of the mobile OS market, Samsung was the leading provider of Google Android smartphones in 2010, taking in 9% of smartphone market revenue and overtaking HTC.
“Other smartphone vendors have grown using the Android platform,” noted Strategy Analytics’ associate director Martin Bradley. “The dominance of the top 3—Apple, Nokia and RIM—actually weakened in the fourth quarter, as the combined value share of these three players fell from 72 percent to 61 percent. The Android-based handset market, which will grow considerably in 2011, is still dominated by vendors like Samsung and HTC. However, Chinese vendors, like ZTE and Huawei, also have a presence, particularly in lower price tiers.”
