News
Gartner: Windows Phone To Leapfrog Apple for No. 2 Mobile OS in 2015
- By Kurt Mackie
- April 11, 2011
Echoing a forecast released by IDC in late March, a recent Gartner report projects that Google's Android mobile operating system will hold the top OS market position in 2015, with Microsoft's mobile OS placing second.
According to Gartner's stats, Android was second to Nokia's Symbian mobile OS last year. However, as part of Nokia's deal to put the Windows Phone mobile OS on Nokia devices, Nokia plans to let Symbian lie fallow. Gartner expects Symbian use to fall from 19.2 percent in 2011 to near zero by 2015.
Meanwhile, Android use will climb to a 48.8 percent market share in 2015, followed by Microsoft's mobile OSes at 19.5 percent, Apple's iOS at 17.2 percent and Research In Motion's mobile OSes at 11.1 percent.
According to Gartner, Apple's iOS will hold its second-place position through 2014, but it will slip to third place in 2015 after Microsoft's OS, largely because of Apple's pricing strategy. Gartner expects Apple to take an approach of "maintaining margins rather than pursuing market share by changing its pricing strategy" over the next few years, according to the analyst firm's press release released Thursday.
Gartner's positioning of Microsoft's mobile OSes in the No. 2 smartphone market position by 2015 hinges "solely by virtue of Microsoft's alliance with Nokia," according to a Gartner's announcement. However, it's not clear if Nokia's current smartphone users will stay with Nokia when the Windows Phone OS starts shipping on Nokia devices. In addition, financial analysts remain wary following the Microsoft deal, with Moody's downgrading Nokia's credit rating after Standard & Poor's did the same.
Smartphone sales will move 468 million units this year worldwide, representing a 57.7 increase from the 2010 sales figure, according to Gartner's report, "Forecast: Mobile Communications Devices by Open Operating System, Worldwide, 2008-2015." Use of open OSes in mobile devices will represent 26 percent of all handset sales this year, growing to 47 percent by 2015.
Gartner defines an "open OS" as one that has software developer kits and application programming interfaces available for developers. Mobile OSes that meet this definition include "BlackBerry OS, iOS, Symbian, Android, Windows Phone, Linux, Limo Foundation, WebOS and bada," according to Gartner.
The majority (67 percent) of mobile devices with open OSes will have an average selling price of $300 or less by 2015, according to Gartner.
Gartner's predictions are shown in the table below.
Mobile OS |
2011 Market
Share (%) |
2015 Market
Share (%) |
Android |
38.5 |
48.8 |
Microsoft |
5.6 |
19.5 |
Apple iOS |
19.4 |
17.2 |
RIM BlackBerry |
13.4 |
11.1 |
Nokia Symbian |
19.2 |
0.1 |
Other |
3.9 |
3.3 |
Source: Gartner's "Forecast: Mobile Communications Devices by Open Operating System, Worldwide, 2008-2015." |
About the Author
Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.