It is understandable that Symbian’s smartphone market-share has started declining as increasing number of Linux, Windows Mobile and RIM handsets are introduced in the market. Around 116 million smartphones were shipped in 2007, meaning market-share of about 67% for Symbian and less than the 72% market-share it had in 2006. However, if we look at Symbian’s share of the overall handset market, it grew from about 5.1% in 2006 to 6.7% in 2007. Personally, I think the better way to evaluate performance of Symbian and other OS vendors would be to look at the market-share they have of the total handset market and not just the smartphone segment. It is important to remember that smartphone segment is the fastest growing segment in the handset market - just over 10% of total handsets shipped in 2007 were smartphones, but by 2012 over 25% of total handset shipments will comprise of smartphones. This means that OS vendors including Symbian can continue to earn strong profits even while losing smartphone market-share, simply because in terms of handset units, 70% of smartphones shipped in 2007 will be less than 40% of smartphones shipped in 2012. Therefore, OS vendors will continue to profit as long as they keep achieveing growth in terms of smartphone shipments. 

 

Open Handset Alliance including the Google-Android initiative and Nokia’s recent acquisition of Trolltech (see previous blog) are seen as developments in favour of Linux. All this is true but Linux is still way behind to be in a position to challenge Symbian’s market dominance. Further, Symbian’s agreements with various industry players including handset vendors and large number of operators means that it will continue to be the major handset OS vendor for a good number of years to come.