Just another WordPress weblog

With all the news we’re hearing about the iPhone, especially with the 3G rumors quickly gaining steam, I can’t say I saw this coming. But it appears that they lost some market share during the first quarter of 2008. This puts them when Sony Ericsson and Motorola among the losers, surrendering market share as Asia and Africa continue their robust growth. We’ll hit on the other two in a second, but it also appears that growth in Asia and Africa isn’t the only reason Apple is starting to fall behind.

Neil Mawston of Strategy Analytics notes that there is a “lackluster demand for [Apple's] overpriced iPhone in Western Europe.” Perhaps they will take better to it when it runs on the faster 3G networks. On the other hand, Nokia continues to manufacture cutting edge phones which fare well in the European market. So perhaps it just wasn’t meant to be with the iPhone and Western Europe.

Motorola’s market share dropped from 12.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007 to 9.7 percent currently. Sony Ericsson saw a similar decline, going from 9.4 percent to 7.9 percent. Korean manufacturer LG climbed past Sony, jumping from 7.2 percent to 8.6 percent.

Samsung beefed up their share as well, growing to 16.4 percent from 14.1 percent. With the Glyde set to go during the second quarter, they could certainly see another quarter of market gains.

As we see reports like this as the year goes on, watch out for some growth from Research In Motion, which figures to release their highly rumored BlackBerry 9000 series this year, as well as the Kickstart, a newly revealed clamshell model. Keep an eye on HTC later on, as they could be releasing two more models before closing the book on 2008.

Share on Facebook | Add to De.licio.us | Digg This! | Technorati