If you want to find a Symbian owner in Australia, the best place to look might be in line at the Apple Store. Apple is now Australia’s No. 1 mobile phone vendor as Symbian maker Nokia lost nearly half of its market share during the first quarter of 2011.
“Nokia suffered a double-whammy, the feature phone market collapsed, with 79 percent of new mobiles now being smartphones,” research firm IDC announced Monday. Nokia fell to 24.6 percent of the market during the first quarter of 2011, diving steeply from 49.5 percent held during the same period in 2010.
“We expected Symbian to decline steadily throughout 2011, however the pace of decline has exceeded all expectations, with the majority of would-be Symbian buyers heading to Apple,” IDC analyst Mark Novosel said.
Don’t expect the remainder of 201 to be any better for Nokia. Consumers will continue to “side-step Symbian smartphones and feature phones popularity continues to dwindle,” according to the analyst. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 – Nokia’s future – “faces a tough year” as the software grows slowly and Apple and Android punch it out for top place. Nokia may want to adopt the Cubs’ mantra: Wait until next year.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
4 responses to “Apple iPhone Now Tops Down-Under as Nokia Hit With ‘Double Whammy’”
This will happen stateside too, especially if the rumors about a mid-line iPhone are true.
-Chris
http://friendsofmac.net
Ed, how about reporting on all of the figures in the report, not just the ones that toot the Apple horn:
“Despite a 5% year-on-year (Y/Y) dip in the overall market, iPhone shipments soared 13% quarter-on-quarter (Q/Q)” – Apple LOST market share this year overall.
“Android remains on track to become the most popular smartphone OS in Australia this year, although Apple is doing its best to delay Android from reaching this milestone.” – Android is growing much faster in Australian smartphone market.
You didn’t even mention android in your piece. I hope you’re not expecting anyone to take what you say seriously.