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7.09.2009

2009 Mid Year Smartphone Assessment

by John Calian |
Topics: |

The midway point of 2009 has come and gone, and its time for a bit of an assessment. At the beginning of the year, I (and many others) were saying 2009 was the year Google's Android would take off, Palm would release its savior and we all questioned who would remain relevant as Apple's market share grew (RIM, Nokia, Motorola?). Table after the fold shows which smartphone OEMs have devices at which US carriers.

Android has NOT taken off, though there are many handsets coming from various OEMs, including Motorola's attempt to save itself from obscurity. But, I still believe the best is yet to come, and 2009 still has six months left. The new HTC Android device looks like a winner (and reviewers are loving it).

Palm did release a kick ass phone and exceeded its expectations (150,000 sold in first week); though the hard part is that everyone is comparing it to the iPhone, which is not fair. Palm has simply proved that it can compete, and I do not believe we have started to see the results yet, and will not for many more months. It will take time to build out all the infrastructure needed to fully compete. The iPhone hit the scene and changed everything; the Pre hit the scene in the wake of the iPhone juggernaut, and everything pales in comparison. Note, the iPhone had one full year without the App Store...

Is Apple kicking ass? Yes, no questions asked.


Who is relevant: RIM has been kicking ass also, grabbing market share as its Bold and new Tour are making waves (positive ones); The Storm has had luke warm results, but shows that RIM is serious about touchscreens; Nokia still holds the lion's share of the marketplace, everywhere except in the US. Only AT&T is showcasing a Nokia smartphone, the E73; What has been one surprise is the LACK of news from the folks at Moto; an Android phone is supposed to be on the way, but very little is known as of today.

One last point here that is important: smartphones are quickly becoming handheld computes that make phone calls over wireless; netbooks are quickly becoming smartphones that run all types of operating systems (and wireless carriers are now selling, er giving away, netbooks). The point is that these devices are starting to bleed into each other, and we are all going to be holding small computers in our hands one day (if we don't already, and I'm sure most everyone reading this fits the bill).

All OEMs are getting in on the smartphone action: Dell, Garmin, Acer, Asus, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG, Huawei, and the list goes on.

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Handsets people are talking about:
Breakdown of which Smartphone OEMs have devices at the US Carriers



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