It is the stuff of legends.
But new figures reveal the makers have made inroads beyond their wildest dreams into the Smartphone territory – previously the almost exclusive domain of the iPhone and Blackberry.
The two brands in particular have come out as star performers in the Smartphone race – recording almost 700 percent growth between them.
Korean owned Samsung experienced a whopping 438.9% growth alone compared to the previous year.
“Android continues to gain by leaps and bounds, helping to drive the smartphone market,” said Ramon Llamas, senior analyst with IDC’s Mobile Phone Technology.
“It has become the cornerstone of multiple vendors’ smartphone strategies, and has quickly become a challenger to market leader Symbian.
Samsung’s result comes on the back of successful market uptake of its new releases Galaxy S, released to Australian users last year, along with the Wave and Vibrant, which were popular in the US.
Likewise, Taiwanese maker HTC, a relatively new entrant in to the Smartphone market in Austraia and barely heard of this time last year also recorded 258.3% growth, placing it as number five spot in the Smartphone top makers chart.
Samsung held the number four spot, topped by the usual suspects RIM, the makers of Blackberry, Apple and Nokia who still holds on to the top spot.
Finnish makers Nokia, despite its relatively small share in the high end Smartphone market and lack of overall market impact in the US grew 36.1% – and will be hoping this will grow further with a recent shake up of top management and a possible collaboration with Microsoft Windows7 phone.
American carrier AT&T’s cancellation of the X7 Smartphone didn’t help matters either.
Apple, the other usual suspect, grew 86.2% on the back of the 2010 release of the iPhone 4 and IDC have tipped iPhone 5 to be another winner with market momentum already building, with a new design and “perhaps a mobile wallet.”
Although Symbian has the backing of market leader Nokia, Android has multiple vendors, including HTC, LG Electronics, Motorola, Samsung and a growing list of companies deploying Android on their devices.
Adding to the phones landscape was two new entrants, Nokia’s Symbian^3 and Windows Phone 7.
“In their first quarter of commercial availability, both Symbian^3 and Windows Phone 7 ramped up quickly, just in time for the holidays,” added Llamas.
By the end of last year, Nokia had shipped five million Symbian^3 units while Windows Phone 7 vendors shipped more than 1.5 million units.
“Now, with the holiday quarter over, both platforms will need to sustain this initial growth in the quarters to come,” he warned.
Canada based RIM, the makers of Blackberry saw stable growth figures very similar to Nokia at 36.4%, and seeing particular growth outside traditional Northern American markets.
BlackBerry Torch and the BlackBerry Curve 3G were singled out as market favourites, although face mounting challenges from the competition, IDS warned.
