The worldwide smartphones market reached a new record level in a single quarter. According to IDC's Worldwide Quaretly Mobile phone tracker, vendors shipped a total of 54.5 mn units in the fourth quarter of 2009 , up by 39% from the same quarter a year ago.
In the year, Apple's iconic iPhone nearly doubled its shipments from the same quarter a year ago.The fourth quarter also saw the launch of the iPhone at one of the world's largest carriers-China Unicom. Motorola returned to the top five vendor list after a year-long hiatus. While Research in Motion topped the 10 mn unit mark for the first time in the company's history. Market leader Nokia's shift to bring more touchscreen-enabled smartphones to market began to pay off, as its 5800, N97, N97 mini, and 5530 models drove both revenue and profits.
For the full year, vendors shipped a total of 174.2 mn units in 2009, up 15.1% from the 151.4 mn units in 2008. Smartphones accounted for 15.4% of all mobile phones shipped in 2009, up slightly from 12.7% in 2008.
"Four of the top five vendors established new shipment records for a single quarter, indicating strong demand in the market," said Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team.
"Increasingly, mobile phone users are seeking greater utility from their devices beyond telephony and messaging, and converged mobile devices fulfill that need. To help address demand, carriers took advantage of lower prices on many older devices, ordering additional units and, in turn, offering reduced prices to end users. It was the perfect set of conditions to push shipments to a record level."
IDC anticipates that ongoing demand will drive the worldwide smartphone mobile device market to a new shipment record in 2010, with additional impetus from the shifting landscape of mobile operating systems. 2009 saw Google's Android and Palm's webOS as both operating systems revealed new ways to surround the users with increased functionality. More advances are in store for 2010, as Symbian and Windows are expected to unveil new versions of their respective operating systems.
akhileshs@cybermedia.co.in
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