A lot of things have changed in the past year. Least surprising among them is the iPhone’s rise to global popularity. From the first quarter of 2008 through Q1 2009, the iPhone’s global market share has more than doubled. Mirroring the smartphone market’s resilient growth, the iPhone has managed to buck the trend of declining cellphone sales and now enjoys a 10.8% share of the global smartphone market.
In Gartner’s recent mobile market analysis, the research firm notes that the iPhone increased its global smartphone market share to 10.8% from 5.3% in Q1 2009. iPhone sales more than doubled from 1.7 million units in Q1 2008 to 3.9 million units in Q1 2009. The success of the iPhone highlights the smartphone market’s trending towards touchscreen devices. Sales of touchscreen smartphones in the mid-range were driven by virtue of the touchscreen alone, while sales of high-end smartphones benefited from the integration of the touchscreen with mobile services and applications.
Nokia is still the market leader, even when it comes to smartphones. Nokia enjoys a41.2% share of the global smartphone market, while second-place Research In Motion claims 19.9% of the smartphone market with its lineup of BlackBerry smartphones. Apple, in third place, might manage to pull more smartphone users to its iconic iPhone, but new offerings from Palm, Nokia and HTC will likely make it harder on iPhone sales.