Technology research services firm Gartner, Inc., US, has released a report titled "Competitive Landscape: Mobile Devices, Worldwide, 4Q10 and 2010". According to the report, worldwide mobile device sales to end users totalled 1.6 billion units in 2010, a 31.8 percent increase from 2009. Smartphone sales to end users were up 72.1 percent from 2009 and accounted for 19 percent of total mobile communications device sales in 2010.
Overall, the mobile device market showed less seasonality than in previous years in mature markets such as Western Europe and North America, the report noted. Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users reached 32.7 percent growth in the fourth quarter of 2010, with sales of 452 million units.
In the smartphone operating system (OS) market, Android grew 888.8 percent in 2010 and moved to the No. 2 position. Android sales in the fourth quarter of 2010 continued to be driven by broad availability of many high-end products from HTC (Desire range, Incredible and EVO), Samsung (Galaxy S) and Motorola (Droid X and Droid 2).
Symbian's market share dropped further in the fourth quarter of 2010 to 32.6 percent or 32.6 million units. This allowed Android to overtake Nokia's Symbian unit sales. However, the Symbian OS is also used by Fujitsu and Sharp as well as in legacy products from Sony Ericsson and Samsung.
The wider availability of the iPhone 4 helped Apple to maintain its share of the smartphone market at 16 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 and led the iPhone OS platform to reach the No. 4 position in 2010.
Earlier this month, Gartner released a report titled 'Forecast: Mobile Application Stores, Worldwide, 2008-2014'. According to the report, worldwide mobile application store downloads are forecast to reach 17.7 billion downloads in 2011, marking a 117 percent increase from an estimated 8.2 billion downloads in 2010.
Smartphones and tablets are expected to take centre stage at the forthcoming Mobile World Congress 2011, scheduled for February 14 - 17. A number of new application announcements such as 3D technology, improved user interfaces around touch, faster networks on LTE technology and new forms of payments, such as near field communication available on smartphones, are expected to be made.
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