Growth Fatigue!: Symbian, on a slide

Even though Symbian maintains its lead over rivals in the worldwide mobile o/s market sweepstake, the gap is narrowing, as latest data from StatCounter suggests.

While Symbian, from Nokia’s stable, might still be the top mobile operating system (O/S) worldwide but its market leadership is surely on wane as the latest data from data analysis agency, StatCounter shows. Symbian’s global market share stood at 30.25%, as on January 31, 2011, down from 34.16% a year ago. It is followed by Apple’s iOS at the number 2 spot with a market share of 25%, down from 33.13% in January 2010. And guess who won at the cost of these two players. While, it may not take much for you to suggest that it’s Google’s Android, there is another surprise winner in Blackberry, of course the gain was comparatively much substantial in case of the former (i.e., Android). Android grew its market share from a meager 4.54% in January 2010 to nearly 15% (14.61% to be precise) while Blackberry’s O/S added 475 basis points to take its tally to 15.03% in January 2011 from 10.28%, a year ago.

Symbian vs. others – The gap is narrowing

(January 2011)

Source: gs.statcounter.com 

In India too, Symbian rules the roost with a market share of 71.48%, as on January 31, 2011, according to StatCounter. Samsung is a distant second with a market share of 10.6%. Android with a market share of just 1.25% is placed fourth.

India’s mobile o/s market share: Advantage Symbian

(January 2011)

Source: gs.statcounter.com 

However, as the StatCounter data shows, Symbian has been losing market share consistently every month since the last one year. But what has surprised market pundits is Nokia’s, which is now led by an ex-Microsoft hand, latest decision to enter into a tie-up with Microsoft and adopt the latter’s Windows 7 o/s.

Does the new development suggest Nokia planning to dump Symbian?

Amy, Chief Editor