Smartphone Sales Projected to Grow Almost 40% This Year Discussion

[Ryan Punzalan]

As the worldwide mobile phone market grows in 2012, smartphones are projected to see an increase of sales of about 40% while feature phones will see a decline of about 10%.

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[Ed Hardy]

IDC is sticking with its prediction that Windows Phone is going to take off and outsell iOS in a few years. The first time the company said this, it generated quite a bit of debate:

IDC: Windows Phones to Knock Apple's iPhones Out of Second Place Discussion

[Mitlov]

So far, Windows Phone still hasn't exploded; it's growing (sales are up 33% from last year). Even its market share is hard to pin down, as market share statistics tend to lump it with the totally-unrelated Windows Mobile 6.

But just because WP7 hasn't exploded in the first two years doesn't mean that WP8 will remain an outlier instead of a major player. Compare the first two years of Android with the third (and remember that WP7has been around for seven quarters so far):



I think the increasing focus on selling the phone as part of a greater Windows 8-and-Xbox ecosystem has potential. SmartGlass in particularly looks promising (your phone interacts with your Xbox as a streaming media remote and as a game controller). It could fail, sure, but I think WP8 has very good chances going forward.

[LandSurveyor]

I would like it to succeed if only to keep the mobile ecosystem from shrinking even more. Google and Apple have too much sway already.

Something else also occurred to me: I wonder if this new development that allows Google Maps to be downloaded and used independently of the mobile net is possibly because MS/OVI Maps already does so.

[Hook]

I would like it to succeed if only to keep the mobile ecosystem from shrinking even more. Google and Apple have too much sway already.

Something else also occurred to me: I wonder if this new development that allows Google Maps to be downloaded and used independently of the mobile net is possibly because MS/OVI Maps already does so.

I suspect it is more to compete with handheld GPS units like Garmin. And there is already a very good GPS program for Android with downloadable maps (Copilot Live Standard, which I use). Ovi did it first, but I doubt that is where the pressure came from. And, frankly, I would never credit Ovi maps to MS-- that system has been around for a long time and worked very nicely on S60 (the *only* thing Ovi did right, and actually all they did was acquire Telenav).

[LandSurveyor]

I suspect it is more to compete with handheld GPS units like Garmin. And there is already a very good GPS program for Android with downloadable maps (Copilot Live Standard, which I use). Ovi did it first, but I doubt that is where the pressure came from. And, frankly, I would never credit Ovi maps to MS-- that system has been around for a long time and worked very nicely on S60 (the *only* thing Ovi did right, and actually all they did was acquire Telenav).

True. Ovi maps was a Nokia thing before MS. I wonder how it will mashup with Bing Maps.

I'm not sure phone makers are feeling much pressure from the dedicated GPS makers. I would expect the latter have more to fear from the former than the usually-mentioned competition smartphones supposedly represent to P&S cameras.

As regards lag, I have no experience with IOS or WP but I often have problems loading certain sites on my Android phone. I just don't know whether to attribute it to the phone, the OS, the cell network or what.

[Ed Hardy]

But just because WP7 hasn't exploded in the first two years doesn't mean that WP8 will remain an outlier instead of a major player. Compare the first two years of Android with the third (and remember that WP7has been around for seven quarters so far)

That's a really good point. As an example, a year after Android was released there were questions about whether it was going anywhere, especially as the iPhone and BlackBerry were vastly outselling it. I know that might seem hard to believe now, but it was a real issue in 2008.

I'm not saying I agree with IDC that Windows Phone is going to outsell iOS in a few years -- that seems overly optimistic to me. But I expect it to show increasing marketshare over the next couple of years, especially when Verizon throws its marketing muscle behind it.

[Mitlov]

That's a really good point. As an example, a year after Android was released there were questions about whether it was going anywhere, especially as the iPhone and BlackBerry were vastly outselling it. I know that might seem hard to believe now, but it was a real issue in 2008.

I'm not saying I agree with IDC that Windows Phone is going to outsell iOS in a few years -- that seems overly optimistic to me. But I expect it to show increasing marketshare over the next couple of years, especially when Verizon throws its marketing muscle behind it.

I think it will eventually surpass Apple in sales numbers but not profits. Apple knows how to operate well with lower-volume, higher-profit margin devices. Just look at the Mac lineup. My parents his-and-her MacBook Pro 17s are definitely more refined than my Vaio F2, but they're also twice the price.

I can see a long-term market where iPhone is the "luxury/premium" option (the MacBook Pro of phones), Windows Phone caters to the entry-level mass market (easy to use, Xbox connection) and white-collar businesspeople (MS Office support, easy cloud computing with Windows PC), and Android is the choice of power users and tech-heads (infinitely customizable, open-source).

[weegie]

That's a really good point. As an example, a year after Android was released there were questions about whether it was going anywhere, especially as the iPhone and BlackBerry were vastly outselling it. I know that might seem hard to believe now, but it was a real issue in 2008.

The huge difference is that Google played around with the look and feel of it a lot and also allowed the massive idea pool of the OEM's and developers to do so as well, Microsoft has dictated everything on WP from word go and it hasn't worked, it's hardly surprising, people don't use Microsoft products to be dictated to, it's not one of their strengths because they make a lot of unpopular decisions, and when you take "choice" out of the equation, it becomes a lot less desirable to use Microsoft's products as opposed to Apple or Android.