Report: Android Devices Set To Outsell iPhones By 2012; Open Handsets To Succeed

imageInforma Telecoms & Media has released a report saying that Android smartphone sales will outstrip iPhone sales by 2012, based on the idea that “open” handsets will do better than proprietary systems. For the same reason Informa predicts that Symbian’s decline — its share of the smartphone market was 49 percent last year, down from 65 percent the year before — will reverse, with Symbian’s switch to open source helping it maintain its leadership over Android and MS for the next few years reports Silicon.com. “In 2008 almost 162 million smartphones were sold, according to Informa, surpassing laptop sales for the first time. The analyst forecasts smartphone penetration will reach 13.5 per cent of new handsets sold this year but is set to treble by 2013 – to well over a third (38 per cent) of mobile devices.”

Juniper is slightly less bullish on smartphones, predicting that smartphones will account for 23 percent of handsets sold in 2013, driven by the proliferation of online stores selling specialised applications that will make the gadgets more useful to individual people it says in a report. Juniper predicts that 300 million smartphones will be sold in 2013, and that the segment will weather the economic downturn better than other handset segments as people think “they will be getting more for their money by buying high-end devices”. Handset vendors will see the margins on handsets fall and will need to diversify into service provision with high-value content according to Juniper — something that most of them are already doing, led by Nokia.

Isuppli Alsop predicts the rise of the smartphone market, with sales rising by 6 to 11 percent this year, depending on the deals offered by carriers reports EfluxMedia.

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