A Look Back At Android and the Smartphone Market

[milominderbinde]

Source: Gartner​

It's a new year and time to look back a bit. Android hit in late 2008 with one phone, the T-Mobile G1. Android barely had a 1% market share in 2008. Since then, quite a bit has changed. A number of trends emerge as we look back at the top Android, Windows, Symbian, webOS, iOS, and BlackBerry Smartphones from 2009 to 2011.

2009
In 2009, BlackBerry was king in the US but Nokia ruled the world with a 50% market share. The Palm Pre was to be the "iPhone Killer". The average screen size of the top phones was about 3.5" with the exception of BlackBerry and Palm. BlackBerry peaked in 2009 and has declined every quarter since. Top 2009 phones included:

3.7" Motorola Droid - Android
3.7" Samsung Omnia II - Windows
3.6" HTC Touch Pro 2-Windows
3.5" iPhone 3GS-iOS
3.5" Nokia N97-Symbian
3.5" Nokia N900 - Symbian
3.2" MyTouch 3G - Android
3.2" HTC Hero - Android
3.1" Palm Pre - webOS
2.44" BlackBerry Bold 9700
2.44" BlackBerry Curve

If you are counting, that's 1 Apple, 2 Windows, 2 BlackBerry, 1 Palm, 2 Nokia, and 3 Androids in the top 11 picks.

2010
2010 manufacturers race to offer models in different sizes and form factors so the number of top smartphones in the US increased. Top smartphone displays now averaged nearly 3.7" as technology advanced. Top flagship phones were:

4.3" HTC EVO 4G - Android
4.3" Droid X - Android
4.0" Samsung Galaxy S - Android
4.0" Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 - Android
4.0" Google Nexus S - Android
4.0" Samsung S - Android
3.7" HTC Desire Z - Android
3.7" HTC Droid Incredible - Android
3.7" Google Nexus One - Android
3.5" iPhone 4 - iOS
3.5" Nokia N8 - Symbian
3.2" LG Optimus One - Android
3.2" BlackBerry Torch 9800
3.1" Palm Pre Plus - webOS
3.1" Palm Pre 2 - webOS

That's 1 Apple, 0 Windows, 1 BlackBerry, 2 Palm, 1 Nokia, and 10 Androids in the top 15 picks.

2011
As costs dropped, the average flagship smartphone display size topped 4.3" for Android. iPhone and BlackBerry clung to the low ground. Android took 52.5% of the world-wide market by 3Q2011 in part due to the larger displays. The market had diversified so much that there were 35 different phones picked as top phones by various sources:

5.3" Galaxy Note - Android
4.7" HTC Titan - Windows
4.65" Samsung Galaxy Nexus - Android
4.5" Epic 4G Touch - Android
4.5" T-Mobile Galaxy S II - Android
4.5" Samsung Skyrocket - Android
4.5" LG Nitro - Android
4.5" LG Optimus LTE - Android
4.5" HTC Sensation XL - Android
4.5" HTC Vivid - Android
4.5" Samsung Infuse - Android
4.3" HTC EVO 3D - Android
4.3" HTC Inspire - Android
4.3" HTC Sensation - Android
4.3" HTC Rezound - Android
4.3" HTC Thunderbolt - Android
4.3" HTC HD7 - Windows
4.3" LG Thrill - Android
4.3" Motorola Atrix 2 -Android
4.3" Motorola Droid Bionic - Android
4.3" Motorola Droid RAZR - Android
4.3" Motorola Droid X2 - Android
4.3" Motorola Photon - Android
4.3" Samsung Droid Charge - Android
4.3" Samsung Focus S - Windows
4.3" Samsung AT&T Galaxy S II - Android
4.3" Samsung Galaxy S II - Android
4.3" Sony Xperia Arc HD - Android
4.0" Motorola Droid Incredible 2 - Android
4.0" T-Mobile GX2 - Android
3.7" Nokia Lumina - Symbian
3.7" BlackBerry Torch 9810/50/60
3.58" Pre 3 - webOS (but never shipped in US)
3.5" Apple iPhone 4S - iOS
2.44" Blackberry Curve 9350/60/70/80

That's 1 Apple, 3 Windows, 2 BlackBerry, 1 Palm, 1 Nokia, and 27 Androids in the top 35 picks.

Summary
The market is moving rapidly away towards larger displays, with the exception of Apple and BlackBerry. Larger displays also mean that touchscreen keyboards have rapidly replaced physical keyboards. At the same time the overall size of phones (volume in your pocket) is actually holding steady or even decreasing. The 3.1" Palm Pre was 6.2 in?. The 4.65" Galaxy Nexus is 4.98 in? and weighs exactly the same as the Pre (Phone Arena comparison).

The Road Ahead
As displays move closer to being "edge-to-edge", bezels shrink and larger displays fit into the same size case. In 2012, we can expect to see 5" displays in today's 4.5" case sizes. If the trends hold, the average 2012 flagship display size will top 4.5" while overall case size and weight will hold about the same.

Sources
2009: cNet Top Phones of 2009, another, another
2010: zdnet, source, techtree, another, another, phonearena, wirefly
2011: cNet, cNet, business insider, pcworld, gizmo, phonedog, zdnet

 

[milominderbinde]

A little more...

Windows got put onto everything and took over 80% of the market. The Mac was huge at first but ended up under 10%. The other OS's take the other 10%.

For phones, Android is already over 50% and I think will hit 60%+. Apple will keep 15% for some time but will end up as the Cooper Mini of phones. Apple will remain a cute phone for people with small hands unless Apple can figure out that not everyone has elfish hands like Steve Jobs.

Windows will keep pounding away but will never make it back to 10%. RIM has been losing 1% marketshare a quarter. Once it get's low enough someone will buy it for the patents. RIM was $23B, then $17B, then $12B, and now $8B. The buyout offer has to be at least 50% more than the traded value so I think that happens as BlackBerry falls to $5B.

I think the big trend to watch is Android going onto tablets, then laptops, and then desktops. With Android, you can but the app once and use it on multiple devices you register to yourself.

 

[Atomic_Monkey]

Cool read, thanks for taking the time to compile those stats...

 

[Officerpolabear]

It's interesting to see that Android seems to be the only smartphone OS that grows exponentially compared to all the others.

 

[Timelessblur]

and to think people though I was crazy when I said the iPhone was around its saturation point. Your posted grafts prove that it been sitting there for a while. It hovers up and down but really has not changed for well over a year.

 

[srkmagnus]

Great write-up! Larger screens are starting to become the norm. OEMs just need to start catching up with battery technology -- which is slowly occurring, but not at the rate phone displays and use are evolving to.

 

[milominderbinde]

Great write-up! Larger screens are starting to become the norm. OEMs just need to start catching up with battery technology -- which is slowly occurring, but not at the rate phone displays and use are evolving to.

Thanks!

The Really, Really big screens will come as Android gets added to TV's and Blu-ray players.

There are a number of Android TV announcements at CES this week. All the flagship TV's are already getting WiFi, YouTube, Amazon, NetFlix, etc. built in. Even low-end Blu-ray players have all that as well.

So the $1 WiFi chip and CPU's are already there. They have to have an OS anyway, so why not use the free one, Android. The Bluetooth chip for the keyboard or mouse is a $1 too.

So imagine your TV like a WiFi tablet.

Now imagine combining your DirecTV, Sony, XFinity, etc. remote app with Vlingo or Dragon Go.

Imagine the power of VLingo or Dragon Go controlling your TV. You could say,
"What college football games are on this weekend?"... "Watch Alabama"
"When do the Blackhawks play next?"..."Record it"
"Find James Bond movies."

Vlingo was the predicesor to Siri, all made by Nuance (along with Dragon). Watch as they connect remote control apps to speech recognition.

The big thing about iTV (Apple TV) won't be the remote. It will be that it will not need a remote. Android will be doing that this year as well.

 

[Officerpolabear]

Great write-up! Larger screens are starting to become the norm. OEMs just need to start catching up with battery technology -- which is slowly occurring, but not at the rate phone displays and use are evolving to.

I will love to see the day when we have 1080p screens

 

[AndroidAdvantage]

I remember the days of the G1... Weird to think a couple years later I have a G2x and couldn't be happier.

 

[Officerpolabear]

I remember the days of the G1... Weird to think a couple years later I have a G2x and couldn't be happier.

It's weird to think that we used to have android devices that were bricks with a 3.2 inch LCD screen at 320x480 and it only had a CPU clocked at 528mhz , even sometimes they didn't even come with a GPU.