Analyst firm International Data Corporation recently released their analysis of the mobile phone market and it shows Android to be far out in the lead of other smart phone mobile operating systems with 68.3 percent of the market in 2012. Apple’s iOS for the iPhone is a distant second at 18.8 percent of the market and all other operating systems are below 5 percent.
Interesting to note, yet not surprising, is that almost all the growth in the mobile phone market is in smart phones.
Projections by International Data Corporation anticipate Android to remain the leader through at least 2016 in this report but with share dropping to anticipated 63.8 percent of the market in the year 2016. They anticipate Android continuing to lead the market because it is available to sell to a great mass of customers, iPhones are seen as a premium product that are “…cost prohibitive for some users within many emerging markets”. International Data Corporation suggest that if Apple wants to increase their amount of market share, that they will need to add lower-priced models into their product mix.
BlackBerry is estimated by International Data Corporation to maintain about their current percent of the market based on their “…pockets of strength in higher-growth emerging markets.” They are not anticipated to have much of an impact on the market beyond that though. They participant to watch is Windows Phone. Right now they have a 2.6% share of the market but with Microsoft’s strong financial position, brand recognition and multiple handset makers, they are projecting Windows Phone share jumping to 11.4% in 2016.
This clearly affects the decision making process when it comes to the mixture of apps to develop for your business. Developing Android applications and iPhone applications are “no-brainers” but business’ need to start considering adding Windows Phone applications into their marketing mix to take advantage of that emerging market.