Research firm IDC Mobile Phone Tracker reports BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIM) market share in the US smartphone market
share rose in 2008's fourth quarter to 47.5 percent, up from 40.4
percent in the third quarter. Apple market share decreased, it dropped
to 22.3 percent in the fourth quarter compared to 30.1 percent in the
third.
It has lead some analysts to speculate that the increase was fueled by the BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Storm as well as the Obama Effect.
T-Mobile, HTC, Nokia, Verizon and LG also increased their market share
in Q4, while Palm, Samsung, and Motorola decreased their market shares.
The IDC Mobile Phone Tracker was not all sunshine there was noly one highlight
in 2008 it was that the converged mobile devices segment (commonly referred to
as smartphones) grew 22.5% over 2007, clearly outpacing the rest of the
industry while the worldwide mobile phone market experienced an unusual downturn in the
normally robust fourth quarter of 2008 (4Q08).
According to IDC's
Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped a total of 289.0 million
units, 12.6% lower than the 330.8 million units shipped during 4Q07. For
the full year 2008, vendors shipped a total of 1.18 billion units
worldwide, 3.5% greater than the 1.14 billion units shipped during 2007.