Apple and Google will dominate the smartphone market in coming years, accounting nearly 80% share of the smartphone market by 2016, according to a new report.
The research, from IHS iSuppli Wireless Communications, said that Nokia’s Symbian operating system will be practically nonexistent by next year as a result of the smartphone merger between the Finnish giant and Microsoft.
Customers are also ditching Canada’s Research In Motion (RIM) for more popular smartphone platforms, due to delay in introduction of a new operating system to its flagship BlackBerry phone, the report said.
The report claims that Windows Phone will emerge as the only viable competitor in the market.
Shipments of smartphones operating either the Apple iOS or Google’s Android are expected to reach 519 million units in 2012, compared to 338.6 million units last year.
The combined share of Apple and Google smartphones will amount to 76% in 2012.
The remaining 24% of market share will divided between four other segments that include Nokia’s Symbian, Research In Motion’s BlackBerry, Microsoft’s Windows Phone and other systems like Bada and Linux.
In 2011, smartphone share for Apple and Google was at 68% and this year’s increase came at the expense of the other players that are anticipated to be assigned to more marginal positions in the years to come.
Prior to the growth of the Apple and Google smartphone platforms, cellphone manufacturers had relied on specialized third-party operating system providers like Symbian and Windows to offer the core software technologies in order to build advanced mobile devices.
According to the report, the catalyst responsible for popularising smartphones was a break through in user interface design, pioneered by the Apple iOS and its influential iPhone.
IHS iSuppli believes that what the iPhone did was to embody a mobile-centric product not merely serve as an extension of the traditional PC.
Earlier in a report International Data Corporation (IDC) found that nearly 85% of thesmartphones shipped in the second quarter (Q2) of 2012 were powered by Android and iOS platforms, reporting a joint rise for the mobile operating systems developed by Google and Apple.
Samsung has shipped 50.2 million smartphones in the second quarter of 2012, compared to 26 million for Apple.
