By 2014, Android will have stormed past BlackBerry OS and Apple's iOS in terms of market share, becoming the second most popular mobile operating system behind Symbian, according to research firm IDC.
IDC predicts Android's market share will have grown by 51.2 per cent by 2014. As shown in the chart above, BlackBerry OS' market share is expected to fall by 3.5 per cent, Symbian's by 18 per cent, and iOS' by 25.8 per cent.
That still leaves Symbian in first place, with a 32.9 per cent market share in 2014. But Android will grow to take 24.6 per cent of the market, thereby securing second place. That leaves BlackBerry OS in third place, with a market share of 17.3 per cent.
From the figures, it looks like Android's growth is expected to hurt iOS, with the market share of Apple's operating system decreasing to 10.9 per cent, from 14.7 per cent now. That leaves iOS in fourth place.
IDC also predicts that Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile won't make as much of an impact in the next four years as Microsoft might hope, accounting for 9.8 per cent of the market, compared to 6.8 per cent now. That's a growth of 43.3 per cent, but still leaves Microsoft's mobile operating systems in fifth place.
IDC said it believes no single smart-phone operating system will come to dominate the market over the next few years in the way that Microsoft Windows has dominated the computer market.
What do you think? Will Apple's market share fall as Android appears on an increasing number of devices from a variety of manufacturers? Is BlackBerry OS' goose cooked? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Anonymous 9 September, 2010 16:13
Huh? 4 years is a long time to project how much market share a phone OS will have. Where is proof of IDC's track record for these type of predicions? How can you possibly predict what a phone OS will do 4 years from now when it is not even available yet (ie: Windows Phone 7)? A little more than a year ago, almost no one knew what an Android was. Did IDS predict it would be as popular as it is today? To project out 4 years in this volitile of a market is rediculous!
Anonymous 9 September, 2010 16:52
+1, I doubt they could come close to predicting the market share in a years time let alone 4.
Mark Anderson 9 September, 2010 20:17
So, what your saying is that Symbian will still be top dog in 2014 despite the fact that Android and iOS were supposed to kill it?
One of these days the tech community will wake up to what people are actually buying. I mean Tesco did (mainly because they don't give a s**t what's hyped, merely what makes money), that's why they released the grocery app for Nokia touchscreens before the iPhone. Which kind of makes your article on that subject even more tragic.
Apples are not the only fruit. They're not even the most popular. Maybe one day the tech journals will wake up to that fact.
Anonymous 10 September, 2010 11:19
Android was nowhere last year. Android has already whupped Apple's iOS and is only 1.6% behind BlackBerry this year.
liamd 10 September, 2010 18:52
Does symbian = dumbphone? Or just Nokia?
I agree its impossible to predict the future like that, but anyone can see how this is going to play out. Android looks like the unstoppable force by sheer number of phones/tablets coming out. IOS will still be around but they will become mite niche, bit like PC vs Mac.