iPhone Overtakes Nokia in Smartphone Market Share

Lonnie Lazar ()

nokia5800-iphone.jpg

iPhone hosts nearly half the ads served on mobile platforms.

Apple now has overall market share leadership in the worldwide smartphone segment, having overtaken former frontrunner Nokia based on browser calls for mobile ads. A recent report at BNet Technology cites AdMob statistics that show Apple with 49 percent of mobile ad traffic in the first quarter of 2009, compared to 32 percent for Nokia.

The market shift may have less to do with customer preferences for Apple’s hardware, however, as a recent smartphone industry analysis from Gartner notes; services and applications have become the primary drivers of smartphone success.

The stats appear to vindicate Apple’s approach to application distribution via the iTunes App Store. William Volk, CEO of entertainment and business apps vendor PlayScreen, said on a professional forum posting that “other stores simply aren’t matching the ARPUs [average revenue per user] of the Apple App store.”

The iPhone OS also enjoys a comfortable lead over every other mobile operating system, including Symbian, Research in Motion (RIM), Palm and Windows, with May numbers showing iPhones had 68% of the browser requests in the survey.

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About the author

Lonnie Lazar

Lonnie Lazar is a writer-musician-web designer-attorney. He writes about Apple for Cult of Mac and Mac|Life, and about VoIP and telecommunications for Voxilla. Follow Lonnie on Twitter @LonnieLazar, join the Cult of Mac on Facebook, and find Lonnie's photos on Flickr.

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Posted in Advertising, Apple, iPhone, News |

  • Richard Bloor

    But AdMob supplies mobile advertizing solution specifically targeted at the iPhone so thier stats are not a surprise

  • http://www.techfreakstuff.com/ Tech-Freak Stuff

    Browser calls for mobile ads is not the criterion for confirming that iPhones have taken a lead over Nokia Smartphones in the Market.

    It is to be noted that, people using iPhones mostly are Business-Class people who need access to Internet on the Go. But, people using Nokia Smartphones, come from all classes including Middle as well as Business Class. They rarely tend to access internet from their cell phones which leads to lower Browser calls.

    Hence, I still believe that Nokia is a sure leader in the SmartPhone Market!

  • John

    Nokia is still WAY ahead in market share, with 52% to Apple’s 18%, I believe. RIM is second. Apple is ahead in “browser calls” only, i.e. data usage basically.

    Thus, I’d say your title is a little misleading, and incorrect.

  • ashu khan

    yahhhhhhhhhh of course nokia smart phones  quality is zero