RIM and Apple gain more smartphone marketshare at Nokia’s expense

Pledge your smartphone loyalty to whatever brand you wish, but the fact of the matter remains that more and more people are leaving the Finnish juggernaut Nokia in favor of devices from RIM and Apple. During Q4 2008, Nokia’s overall market share fell from 50.9 percent to 40.8 percent and smartphone sales dipped a whopping 17 percent to 15.6 million units. As always, one company’s loss is another’s gain and no two companies highlighted this fact more than more than RIM and Apple. Both more or less doubled their smartphone market share, which now stand at 19.5 percent and 10.7 percent respectively. Apart from the big three, sales of HTC devices were up 20 percent while Samsung saw its sales increase by an amazing 138 percent to 1.6 million units. Still, they each only command modest stake in the smartphone market at 4.3 percent and 1.8 percent respectively. We’re hard-pressed to think of a time where there has been such a large shift in market share for any mobile phone segment, but then again this is the first economic meltdown to occur during the age of the smartphone which has in turn meant fewer new models to snap up.

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